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AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 



AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 



BY 

Hon. h. y. braddon 

Member of the Legislative Council of Neiv South IVales ; sometime 

Co)innissioner for the Comniotniealth of Australia to 

the United States of America 



SYDNEY 

ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD. 

f ublis^ew to t^e Inibexsitg 

1920 






Printed by W. C. Penfold & Co. Ltd., SS Pitt Street, Sydney 






INTRODUCTION 

Mr. Braddon has honoured me with an invitation 
to write a foreword to his "American Impressions." 
So far as I am aware, I have two qualifications, 
and two only, for the slight task imposed upon me. 
One is that I have visited the United States 
several times. The other is that I am imbued with 
the earnest hope that, with the lapse of time, 
relations between the two great English-speaking 
nationalities will become more and more friendly, 
and that their interests will come to be regarded as 
more and more common interests. 

Before visiting the United States the first time 
I was in the habit of saying that I had no desire 
to visit America. When leaving it the first time 
my feeling was that I would rather go there a 
second time than anywhere else a first time. Chiefly 
responsible for that feeling was the view that from 
many, and especially the utilitarian, standpoints, 
America was, to an Australian, the most interest- 
ing country in the world. In many respects the 
United States presented themselves to me as an 
Australia many time multiplied, abounding with 



6 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

valuable lessons to every Australian interested in 
the development of his own country. Like Aus- 
tralia, it is a country of magnificent distances, and, 
despite its amazing industrial achievements, it may 
be regarded, in comparison with the great countries 
of Europe, as still only on the threshold of its 
development. 

As Mr. Braddon makes sufficiently evident in his 
"Impressions," America has her share of troubles 
to face. The greatest and most interesting of 
these undoubtedly arises from the gathering 
together in such large numbers, and under one 
flag, of so many nationalities. It was this 
characteristic, in the possession of which the 
United States is, of course, sui generis, that led one 
of her own great men to describe her as "an inter- 
national boarding house." More than upon any- 
thing else, perhaps, America's future depends 
upon the results that will flow from the melting 
down of all her white nationalities into a common 
stock. At the present they are far from that. In 
probably every important department of American 
life and work, people of British stock are the 
dominating force; but to get America into true 
perspective, especially in her relations to foreign 
affairs, one must never overlook the fact that she 
lacks in an essential degree the homogeneity of 



INTRODUCTION 7 

such countries as Great Britain, France, Italy, 
Japan, and Germany, and that foreign affairs in the 
United States must be continually discussed by 
large sections of her population, not from an ex- 
clusively American standpoint, but from the stand- 
point of racial origin. 

In criticising America's attitude at different 
times towards the great war many people entirely 
overlooked this point — entirely failed to make 
allowance for the fact that it was practically im- 
possible to find a point of view common to all the 
numerically important sections of the community. 
We in Australia experienced difficulties serious 
enough. But what would our difficulties have been 
had Australia been an independent power, com- 
prising in the same ratios nationalities as diverse 
in interest and sympathy as those of the United 
States? America's interest in the issue of the war 
was, no doubt, very great. But at no stage, in 
my judgment, was it so vital and direct as that of 
Great Britain and her dependencies. The British 
communities are, in the main, racially homo- 
geneous. The population of America is, of all the 
great powers, the most heterogeneous. And yet, 
with almost complete unanimity, both houses of 
the United States Congress voted in favour of 
conscription. That fact presents itself to my 



8 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

mind as one of the most remarkable happenings 
in history, and in my judgment argues the opera- 
tion of a remarkably powerful moral influence 
throughout the American nation. Bearing in mind 
that amongst the people of no other great Power 
did there exist the same sectional differences and 
conflict of racial interest, I feel that we must con- 
cede that the statesmen who were responsible for 
America's casting her weight into the scale in 
favour of the Allies accomplished a task of peculiar 
difficulty and magnitude, the successful perform- 
ance of which has placed the people of the 
countries with which she allied herself under a 
debt of gratitude which they may never be able to 
discharge. 

I have read with the greatest pleasure and 
interest Mr. Braddon's impressions of America, 
her institutions, and her people. They furnish a 
picture both accurate and interesting, and must 
contribute to a much better understanding amongst 
Australians of many phases of life and thought in 
the United States. Reading between the lines one 
is irresistibly led to the conclusion that, just as in! 
this booklet Mr. Braddon is helping his fellow Aus- 
tralians to understand America, so, during his all 
too short sojourn in the United States, Mr. Brad- 
don must have done an immense deal to assist 



INTRODUCTION 9 

Americans to understand Australia. Throughout 
his long and valuable record of public service, it is 
probable that Mr. Braddon has done nothing more 
valuable than the work he did as Australian Com- 
missioner in the United States. Certain it is that 
his booklet leaves the very distinct impression that 
no work he has done has yielded him more personal 
interest and enjoyment. 

James Ash ton. 
Sydney, 

2nd December, ipiQ. 



SECTION I 
Characteristics and Resources 

In days now regrettably distant we occasion- 
ally played a certain parlour game. The guests 
were taken one by one into a small room, where 
they found a covered tray. The cover was 
whisked away; the victim was given exactly 
sixty seconds to study a multitude of trifles 
collected haphazard on the tray. Then he or she 
wrote out a list, as far as recollection would serve, 
and the longest list of correctly named articles won 
the prize. Writing one's impressions of a great 
country, after so short a stay as nine months, rather 
resembles that game. The recorder realizes how 
limited were his opportunities for acquiring really 
sound knowledge, and is painfully aware that in 
the final enumeration he possibly overlooked more 
than he set down. At the same time he has seen 
a few things very clearly, and about these he 
writes with the courage that often accompanies 
comparative ignorance. As Winwood Reade has 
it: "Doubt is the offspring of knowledge; the 



12 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

savage never doubts at all." The transient visitor 
to the States is not hampered by a knowledge of 
minute conflicting details, such as might puzzle his 
pen if he had stayed nine years instead of only 
nine months. 

The following jottings do not pretend to be 
comprehensive. Only a few outstanding aspects 
are treated, such as are likely to interest Aus- 
tralians. I had exceptional opportunities for 
gathering impressions ; for I met many Americans, 
and they were as a rule good enough to speak with 
great and illuminative frankness. 

One note by way of preliminary. No modern 
nation monopolizes the virtues, or is exempt from 
a percentage of undesirables. No doubt that per- 
centage exists in the United States throughout the 
various grades of the social structure, and is as 
large as in any other branch of the English-speaking 
peoples. That almost amounts to a truism. I 
only mention it because I personally met very few 
"rotters" in the States, though I encountered great 
numbers of people. Quite possibly I met folk who, 
taken as an aggregate, were rather above the 
average; that does not much concern me. All I 
am concerned with is to set down as honestly and 
faithfully as I can the impressions gathered during 
a brief but entirely wonderful stay in the United 
States of America. 



CHARACTERISTICS 13 

If these notes seem very appreciative, I can only 
say they honestly reflect what I saw and ex- 
perienced. I was not there to seek blemishes with 
a microscope; neither did I close my eyes when 
anything of the kind showed itself. The unvary- 
ing kindnesses and hospitalities which my wife and 
I enjoyed no doubt induced us to be friendly 
critics; but I do not think they clouded our judg- 
ment. Surely a sense of friendliness will have 
enabled us to understand America far better than 
we should have done if we had gone there in a 
spirit of hypercriticism or veiled hostility. We 
came away with a very cordial feeling for our 
many friends in the States. 

Some estimable people are apt to -entertain a 
rather poor opinion of other nations — almost as 
though this were a duty arising out of patriotic 
appreciation of their own. The flimsiest evidence 
in depreciation of foreigners readily impresses 
them ; while proofs strong as Holy Writ in com- 
mendation would leave them unimpressed. Such 
people speak of the United States as if it were a 
country v/here 

1. Blatant millionaires abound. 

2. Trusts grind the faces of the poor. 

3. Architecture expresses itself in skyscrapers 

which touch the stars. 

4. Municipal life is degraded. 



14 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

5. Divorces are rapid and frequent. 

6. The daily papers are violently sensational. 

7. Lynching of blacks is a recognized pastime. 
That is a fairly complete catalogue of the crimes 

usually and carelessly imputed. Let us examine 
them briefly. First let it be said that there are 
elements, tiny fractions, of truth here and there; 
but to exaggerate these particles into masses in- 
volves the aspect of essential untruth almost as 
much as if there were no truth there at all. As 
someone aptly expressed it : such particles amount 
to "that sediment of truth which promotes error." 

1. The typical successful American business 
man is no more a coarse-mannered vulgarian, 
scattering dollars as a Catherine wheel scatters 
sparks, than the typical Englishman is a blase 
monocled idiot who calls everything "rippin','' and 
ultimately marries a chorus girl. 

2. Several Trusts in the States are at this 
moment on trial, for combinations in alleged 
restraint of trade. Laws have been passed with 
the design of preventing these undesirable 
practices ; but such laws, as other countries are 
aware, are not easy to administer. I touch on 
Trusts again a little later in these notes. 

3. The skyscrapers are mostly in the very con- 
gested area of "down town" New York — say the 
last half-mile of the Manhattan peninsula. In 



CHARACTERISTICS 15 

that section several structures rise to over thirty 
stories; while the Woolworth Building soars 
majestically to some fifty-five stories. Rapid lifts 
diminish the time factor to a trifle; no one resents 
climbing into the skies to visit another; the loftier 
stories place the tenant in a delightfully clear 
atmosphere, above the smuts and dust and noise of 
the lower levels. The Woolworth is, notwith- 
standing its enormous height, a beautiful structure. 
It stands as a fine perpetual monument to the pluck 
and industry of the man who made a success of 
the "5-cent store." The Equitable Building, No. 
120 Broadway, is said to house daily, for working 
purposes — i.e., apart from visitors — about 15,000 
people. 

4. Municipal life — in New York, perhaps, 
peculiarly — has its bad features, usually envisaged 
under the title of Tammany; but even Tammany 
has good phases not always so well known. 
Periodically a movement of protest cleanses the 
civic atmosphere; and at any time Tammany in- 
cludes certain useful Friendly Society machinery, 
while making itself distinctly helpful to the be- 
wildered immigrant. Some quite good men belong 
to the organization, and do not share in any way 
in its traditional iniquities. The impetus Roose- 
velt gave to the police, when over twenty years ago 
he created amongst them both prestige and esprit- 



i6 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

de-corps, is said still to survive; and I fancy I can 
claim personal experience in proof. 

A policeman came to the office one afternoon, 
w^ith a message from a young Australian soldier 

then in the prison, who had to answer a 

charge of theft at 9.30 a.m. the next day. Half- 
an-hour before that time I visited the prison, and 
asked to be allowed to see the prisoner. I 
mentioned that I represented Australia, but that I 
was not a legal man. I passed at least four police- 
men, all courteously ready to be helpful, but all a 
little puzzled, because only lawyers were allowed 
down there. However, they kindly passed me 
along, and I had a talk with the prisoner. It was 
merely a case of an injudicious drink or two, and 
an inebriate frolic; but the point was to convince 
the court. I reached the court in time to take a 
place at the legal table as the Australian lad was 
brought in. The complainant was there, with his 
lawyer; and, after I had again explained my 
position, and the evidence had been taken, I was 
permitted by the Judge to address the Court. No 
one objected; and presently the Judge discharged 
the prisoner. Now comes the pleasant side of the 
recital. I asked the complainant, an elderly man, 
to allow me the privilege of compensating him for 
lost time and legal fees; but not a bit of it. He 
gave the lad some fatherly advice about the evils 



CHARACTERISTICS 17 

of over- frequent birthdays, and added that he was 
very pleased the case had ended as it did. I next 
endeavoured to give the arresting policeman a 
little present for his kindly help in calling at my 
office, but he too declined to accept anything, and 
added his congratulations on the youngster's 
discharge. 

5. Divorces are fairly frequent, and in certain 
States the procedure is rapid. Yet I would hesi- 
tate to affirm that the institution of marriage 
amongst educated Americans is on the whole less 
respected than, for instance, in England. There is 
a collateral question of serious import for the 
States — I mean the very low birth-rate among 
the true-blue American society people; whereas 
that of the foreign immigrant is, I understand, 
fairly high. Where is a two-sided movement of 
that kind likely to lead America — say fifty years 
hence ? 

6-^. About the daily papers I will write 
presently; and anyone who feels inclined to con- 
demn the occasional lynchings of blacks should, in 
fairness, first study the "colour" problem in the 
States — a feature fortunately non-existent in Aus- 
tralia. 

No one can stay many weeks in the States with- 
out appreciating the intense patriotism of the 
people. They are as spiritual and intellectual as 



i8 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

the best elsewhere ; more natural and ready to show 
enthusiasm than most ; generous in their estimate 
of others, and wonderfully hospitable if they like 
you. There is nothing blase or decadent about the 
typical American. As the late Mr. J. L. Griffith 
expressed it — (he was their Consul-General in 
London) — the American likes to be liked, and him- 
self readily expresses his liking; whereas the 
Englishman thinks it rather doubtful "form" to tell 
you frankly that he likes you. 

No modern nation can afford to be judged, or 
should in fairness be judged, in the light of im- 
pressions made by its globe-trotters or casual hotel 
occupants. The private home life of its people 
must be investigated before any fair pronounce- 
ment can be made. A feature which greatly struck 
my wife and myself was the refined courtesy we 
found in American home circles. We visited all 
kinds of homes — rich and humble — but in all alike 
the conversation was always skilfully directed to 
include and interest the visitor. Surely this is a 
very true type of that courtesy to which Dr. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes referred as "Surface Christianity." 
Elsewhere -I have encountered another convention 
. — that it was rather poor form to embarrass the 
visitor by "entertaining" him. The American 
hostess runs no risk of embarrassing her guests; 
she is far too skilled for that. The women study 



CHARACTERISTICS 19 

the art of being gracious, lively and charming. 
They are, as a rule, well read and travelled — often 
more so than their husbands, who usually carry 
heavy responsibilities and have little leisure for 
touring. 

Americans intensely admire achievement or 
success, but not unworthy success. They appreci- 
ate wealth, but only wealth wisely and generously 
used. Many are keen to amass means — especially 
the younger men with careers still in the making ; 
but even these seem as a rule more intent to 
become "somebodies" in the community, than 
merely to acquire cash : and nearly all are generous 
with money. They honour culture and character; 
if you have these qualities, they do not care a straw 
whether your bank account is colossal or tiny. As 
Philip Gibbs found on a recent visit, they are keen, 
vital and intense. On the eve of his departure he 
wrote about that "generous emotion which he 
found stirred so easily among the people of the 
United States." Elsewhere he said : "So far from 
being hard and material, they seem to me the 
greatest idealists in the world at the present time, 
and to be emotional almost to the point of senti- 
mentality. In any public gathering, at any private 
table, the idealist takes all the applause, finds it 
easy to put a spell over his company, and can ex- 
press his own sentiment with a simplicity and 



20 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

emotion which would cause a smile or an ironical 
shrug in the sophisticated circles of England or 
France." 

The American plays baseball, and cannot 
imagine himself playing cricket; with the English- 
man it is the reverse. Cricket has a certain solemn, 
conservative, deliberate ceremonial, while baseball 
is impulsive, rapid and spontaneous. These 
national pastimes in a curious way typify certain 
emotional differences between the two nations. 

One feature Australia enjoys in common with 
America — elbow room. We have less than two 
persons to the square mile; America, say thirty- 
five; and the United Kingdom about 625. As a 
"nation" Australia is very juvenile; so is America. 
So it comes about that the American instinctively 
feels a sort of elder-brother sentiment towards the 
Australian, but never quite gets out of his mind 
the notion that the Englishman may possibly be 
rather looking down on him as a comparative new- 
comer amongst the nations. 

As in Australia, so in America there are no 
hereditary aristocrats, and there is little regard for 
the moneyed idler. Most of the wealthy men re- 
main in active business, because they like to feel 
themselves still well in the current of affairs. 
With the Americans education is, up to the popular 
standard, free and compulsory — as with us. They 



CHARACTERISTICS 21 

have the same fresh vigorous outlook that' we have, 
and the word "conservatism" is not in their 
business lexicon. Comparing them with England, 
Philip Gibbs wrote: "Not so fettered by old 
traditions of thought, nor by old superstitions of 
class and caste. Every man has, consciously or 
unconsciously, a sense of opportunity which does 
not belong to our people, and that opportunity is 
there." Fortunately for Australia, it is also here 
— for any man who honestly strives. 

For the Englishman his home is his castle, and 
his privacy is sacrosanct. He unconsciously gives 
expression to this fetish by walls or fences round 
his garden, to keep it unprofaned by stranger eyes. 
While expecting others to respect his privacy, he 
pays invariable respect to theirs. He may feel 
intense pride in his people or their performances ; 
but he has had it drilled into him from boyhood 
that it is bad "form" to express that pride. All 
this explains a certain shy aloofness and almost 
stolid unboastfulness ; attitudes which the stranger 
is very apt to construe as stiffness or assumed 
superiority. Even Australians are apt to mis- 
understand this mannerism — though deep down 
they may know well enough what a really good 
fellow is often hidden behind that veil of shyness. 
For the American it is not so easy to understand 
the reserve of some Englishmen — especially at the 



22 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

outset of an acquaintanceship. The American is 
not hampered by over-rigid traditions of "form." 
He is always ready cordially to reciprocate friendly 
advances, whether casually encountered or under 
the ceremonial of introduction. If he honestly 
considers his people to have done well or ill, he 
does not hesitate to praise or blame; at the same 
time I hardly remember one instance of a fairly 
cultivated American talking boastfully in such a 
way as to be disagreeable. His home is his place 
of entertainment, where he enjoys meeting friends ; 
and he readily joins in a scheme under which front 
gardens are handled from a community rather than 
a private point of view. 

Contrast one of England's beautiful villages in 
summer time with a selected American residential 
village. The English village appeals to our sense 
of the historic picturesque with its quaint little 
shops and cottages, and its old thatched roofs; its 
narrow, winding road, walled on both sides, with 
little gateways giving peeps into tiny flower gar- 
dens bright with blooms, where grand old trees 
spread overhead. We stand to gaze at the grey 
stone church of Norman architecture, all thick 
with clinging creepers, and round about it the 
mounds where "the rude forefathers of the ham- 
let sleep" ; the squire's ancestral manor ; and the 
inevitable "Red Lion" tavern, ripe with age and 



CHARACTERISTICS 23 

tradition. Over all there broods a peculiarly un- 
changing serenity and charm. 

The American village is often run as an in- 
corporated concern, and is a model of neatness, 
with a certain uniformity of architecture. The 
gardens have no walls or fences ; every householder 
keeps his front lawn trimly cut. The roadway is 
flanked by footpaths, and these again by wide grass 
lawns dotted with trees. The effect in summer- 
time is very beautiful, for you drive through a 
vista of park and lawn, the homes well back on 
either side. Every owner not only enjoys his own 
"front," but has also a commvmity interest in all 
other fronts on that street. The hotel will be up- 
to-date in architecture and fittings, and every bed- 
room will have a bathroom. 

Both pictures are beautiful, each in its own 
peculiar way. One expresses an old civilization 
and charm of association, the other modern 
efficiency, with another kind of charm. But after 
all these are merely surface distinctions, and rise 
from different physical and historical conditions. 
The essential human nature underneath is much 
the same east or west of the Atlantic. Scratch 
the surface of the true-blue American, or of the 
Britisher, and you disclose the same dogged, in- 
domitable type. Both are the lineal descendants 
of that heterogenous racial medley of the old days 



24 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

— the Pict, Scot, Celt, Angle, Saxon, Dane, 
Norman, and possibly something of the grand old 
Roman of Caesar's day. 

Some of these surface distinctions (or are they 
resemblances?) are illustrated by the story of the 
American and the Englishman walking into the 
drawingroom of a mutual host. The Englishman 
walks in as if he owned the place; the American 
as if he did not "give a damn" who owned it. 

Directly I landed on the wharf at San Francisco 

the unkind Fates introduced me to Blank. 

Possibly it would be more accurate to say that 
Blank carefully guided the Fates, for he saw to 
it that I encountered him with embarrassing fre- 
quency. He was more than middle-aged, and very 
voluble. He knew all the really big men in the 
States — Wilson, Roosevelt, and the rest — knew 
them fluently, and could give me letters to them. 
He knew Australia and my proposed work in the 
States better than I did, and he suggested I should 
employ him as a kind of advance guard, to work 
up interviews for me with the elect. When I 
arrived on the scene I was to have little more to 
do than collect the scalps. For these overwhelm- 
ing services he did not seek payment ; nothing so 
sordid as that; merely a kind of retainer, at iioo 
per month and first-class expenses. The day I 
left San Francisco he intercepted me on the ferry, 



THE PRESS 25 

and handed me letters to two or three of the 
potentates in the East. I was ungrateful enough 
to drop these letters quietly overboard once he had 
diverted the sun of his countenance. Later on in 
New York I met one of those big men, and told 
him the story. He faintly remembered Blank; had 
met him once, years back, in the character of a 
rather crazy reporter. 

I had heard that the American press representa- 
tives were most ingenious in compiling a "story," 
full of vivid points, out of the most commonplace 
remarks of a newcomer; and that in this story the 
exercise of ingenious fancy was likely to play a 
greater part than dull literal accuracy. The ex- 
perience with Blank rather accentuated my alarms ; 
but these fears afterwards proved to be quite 
groundless. 

The Australian Government had requisitioned 
two very capable and loyal Australians in New 
York to assist me with Australian "publicity." The 
moment I arrived in New York there arose 
numerous requests for press interviews with the 
new Australian Commissioner. These two good 
friends deftly stemmed the current for a day or 
two, so that we might get the thing done in "one 
fell swoop." On the agreed day the Press repre- 
sentatives arrived in such numbers that the furni- 
ture was insufficient, and some of them had to 



26 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

picnic on the window-sills, the floor, and all over 
the place. I invited them to put any questions 
they liked; these I engaged to answer frankly up 
to the limits of my knowledge — but all this not for 
publication. Then we would discuss what might 
reasonably be published ; as to the rest I asked 
them to respect my confidence. 

They fairly bombarded me with questions, while 
the two Australians watched over me with almost 
maternal solicitude. We got through somehow ; 
and not one paper, either then or afterwards, 
attempted to go one inch beyond the matter agreed 
on for publication. Incidentally it should be added 
that they helped the Australian publicity work very 
generously at all times. 

On the whole the leading New York papers 
impress one favourably — though, in comparison 
with the leading Australian "dailies," they perhaps 
aim rather more at the sensational. Their political 
articles are apt to be more vitriolic than ours ; but 
their readers are quite accustomed to discount these 
as much as may seem necessary. Altogether, in 
any reasoned comparison, we have no grounds for 
complaint about the standards and capacity of our 
Australian press. 

In the United States there is a remarkable 
readiness to learn about Australia. In point of 
fact, there is a wonderfully comprehensive readi- 



GEOGRAPHY 27 

ness to listen to anyone about anything. This does 
not include sheer nonsense ; but sometimes their 
thirst for information undoubtedly gives unmerited 
audience to interesting "cranks." 

They always seemed surprised to learn that Aus- 
tralia covered about the same square mileage as 
the United States — bar Alaska ; and they were al- 
ways prepared to listen with infinite patience to 
recitals about Australia's sunshine, spaces, re- 
sources, peoples, and customs. 

They know nothing about the six States of Aus- 
tralia as States — it is just "Australia" that interests 
them. After all this is not so very remarkable, 
when you come to think of it. We know very little 
about Massachusetts, Illinois, Iowa or any of the 
other States ; and we too are apt mentally to 
realize the forty-eight States as just "America." 
If we make exception it is in favour of California, 
the nearest State to us, just across the Pacific. 

Occasionally this lack of exact geographical in- 
formation leads to curious confusion — for instance, 
as between the Commonwealth of Australia and 
the Dominion of New Zealand. One merchant in 
the States wrote to me in sorrow rather than in 
anger, the burden of his lament being that some 
Melbourne customs regulation was creating em- 
barrassing difficulty about his landing certain goods 
in Auckland! 



28 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

With so large a country the cHmate naturally 
varies very greatly; that of New York is unique. 
The mean summer temperature is some two 
degrees hotter than Sydney; the mean winter 
temperature is about twenty-two degrees colder. 
As there is always moisture in the air, New York 
City suffers the most trying type of heat at one 
period of the year, and collaterally the most Arctic 
kind of cold at the other. I have shivered in New 
York with the whole-souled abandon of a criminal 
awaiting execution. 

The native wears thin underclothing in winter- 
time for the hot central heated indoor life; but 
when he goes outside into the blizzards, he puts on 
thick furs — if he has them. Outdoor games become 
largely impracticable during the winter months in 
places like New York, owing to the cold and the 
snow. The devotee of exercise can, however, get 
a pale kind of substitute in the indoor games of 
the Clubs — such as squash tennis, squash rackets, 
gymnastics, etc. 

In addition to the original train journey across 
the Continent, from San Francisco to New York, 
I visited^some of them more than once — places 
like Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, 
St. Louis, Albany, Northampton and others. 
Certain work took me up to Montreal, Ottawa and 
Toronto in Canada ; and I also enjoyed a motor- 



RESOURCES 29 

car ride from Little Moose Lake in the Adiron- 
dacks into New York — about three hundred miles. 
These excursions gave me a very vivid impression 
of the apparently illimitable resources of the 
country and its vast possibilities in the way of 
primary production. Lakes, rivers, and canals 
occur every few miles. They have a desert in the 
west, but not so large as ours; and it is flanked by 
mountains which yield melted snow waters in the 
spring. Irrigation systems are converting some of 
these desert places into productive areas. 

Winter snows in many of the States are a detri- 
ment, in the sense that they necessitate hand-feed- 
ing of stock, and interrupt several forms of outside 
employment. But there is a compensation, in that 
the spring sun, melting the snows, starts the spring 
growth with abundant soil moisture. 

Nature has been kind to the United States in 
other respects, for coal and oil and ores abound. 
Cotton grows richly in the south, while the 
northern states grow wheat and stock and all the 
other farm products. Their coal is nearer the sur- 
face than the British — or most of ours — and they 
utilize more machinery. Their production of 
nearly three times more per man does not necessarily 
mean, therefore, that in the States the individual 
miner toils three times as hard as the Britisher. 
Another very great advantage is the vast internal 



30 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

markets created by a population of about 
107,000,000, with a high-spending power per head. 
This renders easy the great industrial capitaliza- 
tions with which the country abounds, and particu- 
larly their standardized "mass" production. Their 
internal possibilities, capital requirements for 
development, their great railroads and industrial 
ventures, keep them busy. Before the war they 
were undoubtedly over-absorbed in purely Ameri- 
can affairs, with some inevitable loss of wider 
vision. These conditions may possibly have pro- 
vided rather too much scope for the big Trusts ; 
that is a matter of opinion, upon which one heard 
conflicting views in the States. The average 
business opinion seemed to be, that while possibly 
some of the Trusts had taken advantage of the 
situation, on the whole they had not inflated prices, 
and that the value to the community of highly- 
skilled management and initiative was too great to 
be lightly risked by abolishing the Trusts — better to 
"regulate" them. I have an idea, founded on little 
more than rather vague surmise, that some day 
yet several of the central States may commercially 
combine and throw off their allegiance to New 
York and other eastern ports. They may utilize, 
to a far greater extent than at present, the 
Mississippi and its tributary streams for water 
carriage to the south, and some day New Orleans 



HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS 31 

may become a great despatch port for goods going 
south as well as for those going west via the 
Panama Canal. 

Between August, 1914, and April, 1917, while 
the great European nations were at death-grips in 
France, Belgium, Italy, and the East, the United 
States accumulated huge profits ; and their bigger 
men realize that they owe a duty towards the war- 
stricken countries — especially to the smaller peoples 
— ^because of these accumulations. Quite possibly 
shrewd business methods will characterize their 
efforts, but if the bigger men prevail, they will yet 
use some of their wealth with the definite idea and 
aim of helping those impoverished and exhausted 
combatants to their feet again. 

England is rich in its grand retrospect of states- 
men, soldiers, sailors, scientific men, scholars and 
writers. The Englishman must be very sluggish of 
imagination who can stand beside the tombs of the 
great undying dead without a deep stirring of his 
national pride and patriotism. Superficially one 
might be apt to regard the United States as by com- 
parison poor in historical background. A visit to 
the country tends rather to dissipate such an im- 
pression. They venerate the memories of the sturdy 
Mayflozver pioneers, whose spirit of independence 
drove them, three hundred years ago, to unknown 
territories where they might possibly suffer untold 



32 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

physical hardships, but where they would be free 
to express unhampered the spiritual faith that was 
in them. That spirit was a potent factor in the 
War of Independence, and survives to-day in 
their descendants. The American venerates 
Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jeffer- 
son, Hamilton, and other stalwarts of that era of 
struggle for separate national existence. One of 
the interesting features to a visitor is the extra- 
ordinary strength of the Washingtonian tradition 
at this moment — the tradition, that is, that he bade 
them keep clear of entanglements abroad. Several 
of their Presidents rank very high in popular 
appreciation ; also writers and thinkers ; also the 
great generals of the civil war of i860; and above 
all towers the figure of Abraham Lincoln, the 
simple great-souled patriot, the greatest democratic 
leader of any time or country. 

With his undoubted capacity for generous 
emotion and enthusiasm, the American makes the 
most of these historical traditions, and very wise 
he is to do so. But he does more. As a cousin 
he is beginning to realize that he also shares in 
the earlier national heroes of England. 

It is a circumstance to note that several bright 
American plays produced in late years in Aus- 
tralia dealt with the modern "crook." For two 
acts he was ingeniously busy in "skinning the 



BUSINESS CIRCLES 33 

boobs," and generally establishing his exalted rank 
in the hierarchy of turpitude. In the third act he 
usually suffered a rapid moral reformation. He 
was always a lovable "crook," and Australian 
sympathy pervertedly went out to him in his "get- 
rich-quick" antics, while it almost sighed a regret 
when finally he became converted to the relatively 
uninteresting paths of rectitude. I have some- 
times wondered whether such plays — backed by 
exaggerated press reports about vampire trusts and 
"fake" financiers — tended to spread the idea, 
amongst the untravelled in Australia, that America 
was a happy hunting ground for "crooks." In 
exactly the same way the manners of the stage 
American detective no doubt severely libel that 
force. For purposes of histrionic effect it seems to 
be regarded as necessary for the detective to enter 
a drawing-room with a cigar in his mouth and his 
hat on the back of his head, while in a raucous 
voice he subjects ladies to a violent "third degree" 
interrogation. 

You cannot measure "crookness" (or is it 
crookedness?) with a tape, for statistical compari- 
sons. Possibly in the States the occasional business 
^'sharps" use more novel and startling methods 
than in most other places; but it remains probable 
that the proportion of sharps to reputables is about 
the same there as elsewhere. It is unfortunate that 



34 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

in any civilized country a few men in every 
thousand will be tempted to try devious tricks in 
order to acquire wealth more rapidly than by the 
unexciting methods of plodding merit. That 
seems inevitable — until the curtain of the millen- 
nium shall be rung up. 

The best brains of the country go into business. 
Many of their vniiversities and schools have special 
courses and degrees in economics and commercial 
subjects; and many of these institutions enjoy very 
generous endowments from business benefactors. 
For some years their young men have also had the 
opportunity of specialized training in the ditties of 
citizenship — citizenship as yet with an American 
horizon, but not a bad foundation for a higher form 
of teaching in international citizenship possibly to 
follow. The commercial houses encourage these 
studies by giving positions of value to successful 
graduates. 

The leaders of the business world are, as a 
rule, fine men — keen, capable, honourable and 
courageous, and with a distinct tendency in many 
cases towards idealism. Each individual expo- 
nent does not every day and always act up to the 
higher traditions — after all, who does? It is, how- 
ever, a national asset that the tendency is un- 
doubtedly there. It is combined, no doubt, with 
great shrewdness, but the general direction seems 



BUSINESS CIRCLES 35 

to be increasingly towards humane methods in the 
relations between employer and employed, and to 
a sense of service due to the community. They 
have the usual percentage of rigid employers of the 
old school ; men who are loth to yield an inch and 
who readily invite a contest. Here I am writing 
rather of the general trend than of particular 
persons. 

Some of the younger men are apt at times to talk 
rather ordinary humanitarianism under the im- 
pression that they are handling profound psycho- 
logical questions ; still, one would make a grave 
mistake to deride these efforts, because in the last 
analysis they show a movement in the right direc- 
tion. 

One almost concludes that Americans are at 
times too ready, in their zeal for efficiency, to 
adopt new methods in mechanism; but it would 
require more detailed knowledge than I possess to 
do more than very tentatively suggest the thought. 
They will not tolerate the obsolete or the second 
best, and so far they are undoubtedly right. No 
archaic process lags superfluous on the stage; no 
likely prospect is hampered for ten minutes by lack 
of funds. Whatever else may be wanting, they 
can always find the money. 

The bigger corporations, banks, and businesses 
are constantly on the watch for capable young men. 



36 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

who are paid salaries enormous from the Aus- 
traHan point of view. To some extent high 
remuneration is necessary to compensate for the 
very high cost of living; but on any "weighted" 
comparison with Australia the salaries paid are 
much larger in the States. Many of these young 
men work very hard, to the possible detriment of 
health, and also of their interests in the home, 
literature, travel, etc. I came to the conclusion 
that the majority were by no means mere con- 
firmed dollar-chasers. In a country which looks 
coldly upon the wealthy idler and which greatly 
admires achievement and efficiency, these young 
men strive hard for success — no doubt also for 
money ; but the dominant idea is to attain the status 
due to success. The older men, who have 
"arrived," do not as a rule work either so hard or 
for such long hours. Both young and old — I mean 
the typical men — are generous with money, 
especially to their women folk. 

In the States the friendly visitor regrets that in 
one or two instances there seems to exist some lack 
of reciprocity. For instance, their copyright laws 
do not protect foreign writers as adequately as the 
American author is protected in, say, Australia. 
Their Banking Laws do not, in a number of States, 
enable the "foreign" Bank to take deposits, though 
as a rule such banks can, subject to minor restric- 



BUSINESS , CIRCLES 37 

tions, do other kinds of banking business. This 
is a pity; and such blemishes, one hopes, will soon 
be cleared away. 

If New York is to be taken as typical of most 
big American cities, then one may readily compli- 
ment the Americans upon the efficiency of their city 
regulation systems. Anyone who, in New York, 
once understands that houses are numbered east- 
wards or westwards from Fifth Avenue (and he 
should do this in a few hours) can hardly have 
difficulty with any address in Manhattan. The 
avenues run north and south, and it is practically 
impossible to miss, say, No. 43 East 123rd Street, 
once you know that you must get off any north- 
bound car at that clearly-numbered cross-street, 
and then make for No. 43 on the right-hand side of 
Fifth Avenue. All numbers are consecutive, odd 
on one side and even on the other. One series goes 
east of Fifth Avenue, beginning at No. i, and 
a similar series goes west. No slow heavy traffic 
is allowed on such avenues as the wonderful 
"Fifth," and few horses are seen there in carriages 
or cabs. The traffic is mostly petrol-driven ; it 
whizzes up and down at a terrific pace along the 
blocks, subject only to police stoppage every now 
and then at the street intersections. If you cross 
the street anywhere except at an intersection, you 
void your policies in the event of accident. The 



38 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

risk is too great for any Insurance Company to 
take. 

Several of the bigger hotels have subterranean 
passages into the underground electric traffic 
systems; and, while I stayed at the "Biltmore" 
(43rd Street), I could, if necessary, go down 
to my office at No. 61 Broadway, some miles 
away, without putting a toe into the open street. 
I was not aware of this during my first few days 
in New York, and on one occasion, in order to 
keep a one o'clock "down town" lunch engagement, 
I innocently took a Ford "taxi" outside the hotel 
at about twenty minutes to one. It had a disc in- 
side indicating its birthday — eight and a half years 
before. It was a mere hundredweight or so of 
assorted ironmongery, only clinging together by the 
grace of God, and only travelling by virtue of the 
ingenuity and enthusiasm of a Hibernian chauffeur. 
We were stopped many times by the traffic, and 
we in turn often stopped the traffic while 
the chauffeur got out and coaxed the weary 
machinery. I arrived "down town" nearly half an 
hour late; and, if I had only known, I could have 
got there by the Subway in about fifteen minutes! 
New York is not, however, uniformly up to the 
"Fifth Avenue" level. There are also densely- 
populated poor quarters, such as the eastern side 
of "down town," where the foreign element congre- 



OUTDOOR SPORTS 39 

gate by the thousand, and where they tend to pre- 
serve their alien, and sometimes hostile, nationality. 

I have already mentioned that the severities of 
winter rather interrupt outdoor sports in the snow 
States. In the warmer weather there are innumer- 
able baseball grounds, tennis courts and golf links 
always in full occupancy. Good baseball is mainly 
professional or collegiate; the crowds who watch 
the senior professional league games are often 
enormous, while the carefully trained skill of the 
players is astonishing. Senior football is hardly 
played, except at the universities, where the close 
and distinctly dangerous "gridiron" game is to-day 
virtually universal. Cricket is played very fairly 
at Philadelphia, but not seriously in many other 
centres. Golf and tennis clubs abound. Some of 
the former are remarkably well laid out, with 
magnificent club houses, and the standard of 
amateur play is high. Rowing is on an amateur 
basis, and mostly confined to the universities. 

American amateurs have been attacked for 
taking their games too seriously, and for practising 
too thoroughly — thus infringing, in some way, the 
canons of amateurism. To me, I must confess, 
such an argument seems rather strained. I like 
to see any youngster thorough in his games, if 
only because slackness there is apt to be duplicated 
in his work. The American, temperamentally, is 



40 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

never satisfied with existing- conditions. His cease- 
less endeavours to improve the mechanism of 
games led him to invent the rubber-cored ball at 
golf, as well as the more compact "socket" driver. 
He discovered the screw-serve at tennis, and the 
"monkey seat" in racing. In track and other out- 
door athletics the teaching and training are 
systematic and thorough. What canons of ■ 
amateurism can be assumed to be broken by 
genuine thoroughness of that kind I confess I can- 
not see. In the American it is consistent, for it is 
the exact counterpart of his thoroughness in other 
phases of endeavour. 

In the collegiate football game the greatest care 
is taken to train the teams in the intricate signals 
and manoeuvres of the game, and this involves use- 
ful aspects of team play. I cannot say I personally 
admire the rules of the game they have evolved. 
The "gridiron" play seems to me to have lost the 
beauties of the "open" play of Rugby, and to offer 
too great a premium to mere brute force. They 
play it with wonderful dash and courage; but far 
too many get hurt. 

I shall, I hope, be pardoned if I record the 
following incident connected with the Davis Cup 
contest of January, 1920 — Australia being the 
holders. America chivalrously refrained from 
challenging, because none of their prominent players 



OUTDOOR SPORTS 41 

had been lost in the war; and it was thought that 
AustraHa, in this respect, was at a disadvantage. 
A prominent Aus'tralian tennis man, then in New 
York, went with me to the tennis authorities, and 
we endeavoured to persuade them to allow us to 
bring about a belated entry for the States — since 
England, France, and others had challenged. We 
put it broadly that Australia would wish the best 
team to win, no matter whence it came. I need 
not detail all the arguments ; it suffices to say that 
we could not shake their decision — a decision 
entirely creditable to American sportsmanship. 



SECTION II 

Political and Constitutional 

I DO not propose anything so ambitious as even an 
abbreviated description of the American Constitu- 
tion. I shall merely touch very lightly, and without 
any attempt at elaboration, upon one or two fea- 
tures which readily strike the newcomer. 

Under the British Cabinet system the Premier 
and his colleagues are necessarily members of 
Parliament. If a Parliamentary majority is at any 
time recorded against them, out they go. If any 
special matter is ventilated in Parliament, the 
particular Minister concerned usually explains it 
on the floor of the House. There is a certain 
admirable compactness about a system under which 
the men who are responsible for both policy and 
administration are members of the legislature, and 
personally answerable to it. 

In the States the electors every four years 
determine who is to be President ; the entire 
House of Representatives and one-third of the 
Senate are elected every two years. As votes are 



POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL 43 

on strictly party lines — Democratic and Republi- 
can — the probabilities are that the newly-elected 
President will have a majority in both Houses. 
He selects his own Ministers (they are called Secre- 
taries) usually outside the Legislature; in effect 
they are really great Departmental heads rather 
than Parliamentary "Ministers" in our sense of the 
term. If they are members of the Legislature 
they forfeit their seats. They are directly respon- 
sible to the President and not to Congress. At the 
outset the President "nominates" his selection to 
the Senate, and unless the Senate records an ob- 
jection within a day or so, the nominations stand. 
It is not customary to object to the President's 
nominees. Presumably the circumstances would 
require to be very exceptional to justify objections. 

Two years after the Presidential election the 
Representatives again face the electors, with 
another third of the Senate, and, if public opinion 
has in the meantime strongly swung round, the 
President's party may be in a minority in both 
Houses for the last two years of his term. That 
is indeed President Wilson's position to-day, ever 
since the elections of November, 1918. A rather 
awkward situation is thus set up, for Congress 
can veto anything the President puts forward, 
while he, in turn, can at any rate once veto any 
legislation the Houses may pass. If the Houses 



44 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

afterwards so desire, they can again pass the 
measure, and, if it secures a two-thirds majority 
in each House, it is carried, irrespective of the 
President's wishes. A President can only be dis- 
missed by "impeachment" for treason, bribery, or 
other high crimes and misdemeanours. But the 
term has not quite the sinister meaning it attained 
in earher British history. In America it signifies 
the legal process for questioning a President's use 
or abuse of his powers or position, and in the event 
of an adverse decision his term thereupon ends. 
In all their history only one President has been 
impeached — President Johnson in 1867. The 
Senate sat as judges, not bound by the ordinary 
rules of evidence. The trial was on political 
grounds, and failed to establish the charges by a 
narrow majority. 

Among political devices growing in favour in the 
States is one which has a special interest for Aus- 
tralians. This is the "recall" of public officials 
before the end of their term of office. Though 
occasionally used in Switzerland, the provision is 
esssentially a product of the Western United 
States ; there it is very popular both in the muni- 
cipal and in State Government, but few States of 
the Middle West, and hardly any east of the 
Mississippi, have adopted it. 

The method of it is this: Whenever a certain 



POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL 45 

percentage (from ten to twenty-five per cent.) of 
those who voted at the last election sign a petition 
for the removal from office of any public official, 
a fresh election to that office must be held, at which 
the impugned official will be a candidate unless he 
prefers to resign. The interval between presenta- 
tion of the petition and the new election varies 
from three weeks to five months. The election is 
decided sometimes by a simple majority, sometimes 
by a majority of all votes polled. It is interesting 
to note that executive officials have six months' 
grace before they can be recalled ; while legislators 
may be petitioned against as soon as five or ten 
days after the first session of the legislature opens. 

The full American practice, which generally in- 
cludes judges of the State Courts (Federal 
Judges are not elected officials), would hardly 
appeal to Australians ; but its application to mem- 
bers of Parliament might be occasionally useful. 
Should, for instance, a Minister of the Crown be 
so severely criticized by a responsible official body 
that his colleagues have to get rid of him from the 
Ministry, this can be accomplished constitutionally, 
as we know ; but the constituency that elected him 
cannot get rid of him so easily. It may have to 
wait nearly three years — in the case of a Federal 
Senator, nearly six — before it can express an 
opinion on his behaviour. That is neither fair to the 



46 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

constituency nor to him ; and some form of "recall" 
might be found advantageous. 

There is always, throughout the States, a strong 
sentiment of loyalty to the President as such. 
This entirely admirable feeling comes under 
terrible strain when, for instance, a keen Republi- 
can feels a deep political antipathy to a Demo- 
cratic President. The proprieties prescribe a 
certain restraint in attack upon the President of the 
day; while human nature may clamour to be let 
loose with an axe. 

If a special question is ventilated in Congress or 
Senate, the Cabinet cannot personally answer, for 
they are not members. They get political friends 
who are members to reply for them; not so satis- 
factory a method as ours. 

Most of the latter-day Presidents used to address 
the legislature by written communications. Presi- 
dent Wilson has introduced rather an innovation 
by delivering his "message" in person. It sounds 
the better way; but there are adverse critics, per- 
haps not so much of this as of other alleged inno- 
vations of his. The Houses conferred very extra- 
ordinary special powers upon the President in 
April, 1917, when the nation came into the war; 
but they did not abrogate the established rule that 
the President can make treaties only in conjunction 
with the Senate. President Wilson might reply 



PRESIDENT WILSON 47 

that he has not yet made a treaty ; that he has merely 
discussed and suggested one. Still, many people 
I met in the States rather regretted that the Presi- 
dent had acted so much alone in the negotiations, 
to the neglect of the Senate's co-equal powers. 

Finally, the Senate in the United States is a body 
with far greater powers than, for instance, our 
Federal Senate in Australia. Take, for example, 
the Senate's "Foreign Relations Committee," at 
this moment handling the enormous issues of the 
Peace Treaty and League of Nations. It has the 
power — if a majority in the Chamber supports it — 
to turn down the President's programme. The 
situation to-day is distinctly awkward, because the 
President is a Democrat, while the majority of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, since November, 
1918, are Republicans. 

Even if I had fairly complete first-hand know- 
ledge, it would still be a very undesirable thing on 
my part to express opinions about the President. 
At any time it would be extremely difficult for an 
outsider to disentangle the man from the official. 
A tremendous prestige attaches to the office; but 
at the same time a very fierce light beats upon the 
Presidential chair, and the occupant of it cannot 
expect to escape censure from political opponents. 
In public life the only protection against attack is 
obscurity; a President can never be obscure. Ex- 



48 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

treme views about him are expressed both by 
political opponents and by supporters; the truth 
may lie somewhere midway, and is not easily deter- 
mined. Here I confine myself to the average views 
I heard from all sorts and conditions of men. 

It goes without saying that no one would be 
likely to attain the position without some qualities 
of greatness. One readily recalls Mr. Wilson's 
fine action upon the issue of the Panama Canal 
tolls, and the moral appeal of his war addresses in 
April, 19 1 7, as illustrating some aspects of great- 
ness. Add to this that he is a capable historian, 
and a fine writer and speaker, with a certain genius 
for turning sonorous idealistic phrases. That is 
how the Democrats would describe him ; and they 
would add that their political chief must obviously 
be a far greater man than the Republicans concede, 
otherwise he could not possibly have occupied so 
commanding a position in the recent councils of the 
nations at Paris. Nor would they accept the Re- 
publican suggestion that possibly the prestige of the 
office, and the great economic strength of America, 
to a large extent furnished the real explanation. 

Even among strong political supporters there are 
at times candid critics. Very occasionally one met 
Democrats who admitted a certain uneasiness about 
some of the President's speeches before April, 
1917; for instance, the phrase "too proud to fight"; 



PRESIDENT WILSON 49 

the advice that Americans should be neutral in 
thought as well as in deed ; the fact that he seemed 
to recognize no differences in the war aims of the 
two sides. Even Homer was said to nod at times, 
and here and there a Democrat seemed prepared 
reluctantly to admit that these were fairly strong 
Wilsonian nods. Finally, they would say that cer- 
tain internal difficulties strongly suggested caution 
in declaring war, whereas Mr. Roosevelt in power 
would have declared war prematurely, and so 
possibly have incurred grave troubles which 
President Wilson ingeniously avoided. 

The Republicans were strong in condemnation, 
and their list of political crimes imputed to the 
President lacked nothing for completeness. The 
following rapid summary must be read with the 
consciousness that no President, however perfect, 
could have escaped some incrimination of the kind, 
under the existing conditions of political contro- 
versy: — That President Wilson discouraged before 
April, 1917, the "preparedness" for which Mr. 
Roosevelt and Gen. Leonard Wood were clamour- 
ing; that war should have been declared, at the 
latest, after the sinking of the Lusitania in May, 
1915; that he won the November, 1916, election on 
the peace ticket, and soon afterwards yielded to 
public pressure by declaring war on Germany in 
April. 1917; that he conducted the war on political 



50 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

party lines, excluding men like the two great Re- 
publicans mentioned above; that his war adminis- 
tration was ineffective — as witness the delays with 
guns, shells, aeroplanes, shipping, etc. — and this 
notwithstanding enormous expenditures ; that the 
internal control of railways, post and telegraphs, 
telephones, prices and wages was equally ineffective; 
that he took too much authority into his own hands, 
to the neglect of the co-equal powers of the Senate 
on certain important aspects, and this notwithstand- 
ing that the elections of November, 1918, virtually 
censured his administration. 

Now that the Senate (since November, 1918) 
has a Republican majority, the Senators composing 
it would be something more than human if they 
neglected the opportunity to embarrass the Presi- 
dent over the Peace Treaty and the League of 
Nations. It will be a pity if large issues are to 
be coloured by local politics or personal considera- 
tions, but such considerations will continue to 
weigh with human beings until men cease to be a 
little lower than the angels. 

This is not the place to attempt any real dis- 
cussion of the League of Nations, but it may be 
pointed out. as a matter of interest, that President 
Wilson, to secure its adoption by the United States, 
has bigger obstacles than mere personal animosities 
to surmount. First there is the strong Washington 



THE SENATE AND THE LEAGUE 51 

tradition ; to keep dear of European entanglements. 
It is as strong among Americans to-day as if their 
great national hero were still moving and speaking 
among them. A doctrine which had everything to 
commend it one hundred and twenty-five years ago 
— as wise guidance for a small population of some 
two millions in thirteen struggling States — still re- 
mains potent under totally different conditions. 
Whether forty-eight States, with their financial and 
commercial ramifications all over the world, should 
still cling to that tradition is matter for grave con- 
sideration. A great people of 107,000,000 can 
hardly to-day keep entirely aloof from the troubles 
of a sick world. Quite apart from international 
ethics, it can hardly afford to do so for commercial 
reasons. Expanding American trade requires buy- 
ing power and security abroad, and these things 
have yet to be laboriously re-established in the war- 
stricken nations. If Americans are to help the 
oppressed and see justice done, it will not suffice 
to utter occasional words of protest ; they 
must be prepared for strong remedial action. The 
American readily acquires a sense of "service," 
though at present with reference mainly to his own 
country. Later on he will see his duty with a 
wider horizon, embracing mankind, and then the 
Washington tradition will vanish with yesterday's 
morning mists. 



52 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

The "League" issue is for the moment rather 
splitting the political parties; for all Democrats do 
not support it, while some leading Republicans 
(like Taft and Wickersham) strongly advocate it. 
America, like other countries, realizes the need to 
have some machinery to prevent such another war ; 
but (a little illogically) some Americans seem to 
desire to incur no responsibilities themselves. 

Their Spanish war brought responsibilities in the 
Philippines, which are still greatly disapproved of 
by the hard-shell Monroe-doctrine American. The 
idea of possibly vastly greater responsibilities under 
the League rather appals that type of citizen. As 
the Monroe doctrine is not always exactly under- 
stood, here are the crucial sentences in President 
Monroe's historic pronouncement : — 

"The two Americas are henceforth not to be con- 
sidered as subjects for colonization by any Euro- 
pean power. . . . We should consider any attempt 
on their part to extend their system to any portion 
of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 
safety." 

While the Eastern States — at any rate the 
majority of the educated individuals in those 
States — are friendly to England on most questions, 
and incidentally on that of the proposed League, 
in the Middle West and West I was told there is 
unfortunately some distrust of English motives, 



THE SENATE AND THE LEAGUE 53 

while they dislike the idea of having the United 
States dragged at Great Britain's chariot wheels, 
as the anti-British propagandists put it. There is 
erroneous comment about the so-called preponder- 
ance of British voting power, because the 
Dominions each secured a provisional vote. There 
is an inclination, carefully fostered no doubt, to 
believe that England emerges from the war the 
greatest gainer of all, and that the League is a 
cleverly conceived British scheme to drag America 
across the Atlantic as a participant in future 
British quarrels. 

That this is all as grossly unjust as it is essen- 
tially ridiculous does not alter the fact that such 
sentiments exist, and that strong, temperate, ex- 
planatory statements in refutation should be pub- 
lished. The huge British effort, both on sea and 
land ; the staggering financial obligations cheer- 
fully assumed, and largely utilized to assist the 
Allies ; the terrible losses of young manhood, and 
the saddening numbers of the maimed; the 
tremendous work and risks cheerfully undertaken 
by women in the munition factories ; the gradual 
conversion of Britain into a huge arsenal ; the in- 
vincible tenacity and dogged resolve of the nation; 
all these need to be put fully and clearly before the 
public in the middle west and western States. 
Meantime the misrepresentations about Britain 



54 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

form another of the factors which President 
Wilson has to combat in his campaign to pass the 
League scheme successfully through the American 
legislature. And, finally, there is the important 
consideration that he does not appeal to a nation 
of one racial origin — but to a nation of very diversi- 
fied racial origins. 

The following opinion was expressed to me by 
an American who has held distinguished political 
positions, and who remains a very keen student of 
affairs : "The mass of the people are strongly and 
widely in favour of some League of Nations, but 
without clear ideas as to the appropriate structure 
for this new authority. The principal factors in 
opposition would rank in the following order (i) 
The traditional policy of isolation, or non-inter- 
ference in Europe; (2) strong local political an- 
tagonisms; and (3) Irish and German propaganda. 

President Wilson is not all academic austerity; 
one of his relaxations is that of the humorous 
raconteur — for he is said to have a large store of 
telling (and publishable) stories. Here is one: 
A well-known citizen visited a hotel, having 
recently looked upon the wine when it was 
red, and noisily demanded a room. He was 
assigned to No. 120. Shortly afterwards he re- 
appeared, and still more noisily demanded another 
room. The manager signalled quietly to an 



THE SENATE AND THE LEAGUE 55 

attendant to pacify him and conduct him personally 
to No. 119. The attendant did so — and then, out 
of sheer curiosity, asked: "What's the matter with 
No. 120?" 

"Why, the damned thing's on fire!" replied the 
citizen. 



SECTION III 
Racial 

I do not propose to discuss the Irish question 
as such. I do not regard myself as an 
authority on that vexed issue, and I had no time 
to give it any very special investigation in the 
States. I propose to do little more than set out its 
manifestations in that country, as they more or less 
inevitably strike an impartial sojourner who keeps 
his eyes and ears open. 

It is not easy to ascertain the exact number of 
Irish in the United States. It is on record that 
the numbers of those born in Ireland, or whose 
fathers or mothers were born in Ireland, totalled 
about four and a half millions according to the 
census of 1910. To these must be added those 
who have come upon the scene since 1910, also 
those of more remote Irish parentage. The full 
total may possibly run up to fifteen millions, or 
thereabout. In any case they are unquestionably 
numerous enough to carry great weight in national 
and civic affairs. Many Irishmen have achieved 



THE IRISH 57 

deserved success in various grades of the social 
scale, and of these a large proportion keep clear 
of anti-British propaganda. On the contrary there 
are other Irishmen, of the agitator type, who are 
ceaselessly active in that work. 

Let me endeavour briefly to sketch the points of 
view of a typical loyal Britisher, and of a respon- 
sible American, in relation to this Irish question. 

The views of Britishers, as I often heard them in 
the States, would be something like this : — 

1. That the majority of Irishmen in the States 
have never seen Ireland, while many are the lineal 
descendants of Irishmen who lived in the black 
days of the middle of last century. That the 
agitators carry in their hearts the hatreds of their 
forebears, and ignore the transformations of the last 
twenty-five years. England remains in their eyes 
the bloody-handed oppressor of the bad old days. 

2. That they must be well aware that England 
has in recent years spent millions on measures to 
enable the native tenants to buy out the so-called 
"foreign" landlords, on workmen's homes, and the 
like. That to-day more than two-thirds of the soil 
is in the possession of small proprietors who are 
slowly paying the purchase price to the British 
Government. That these peasant proprietors have 
enjoyed excellent prices for their farm products 
during the war. 



S8 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

3. That the agitator makes capital out of the sup- 
pression of every rebellion, but never admits that 
the Sinn Feiners start the rioting, or that the Eng- 
lish corrective action is always applied too tardily 
rather than too readily. 

4. That the violent language of Irish extremists, 
at meetings all over the States, would be over- 
strong if applied to Russians conducting a "pog- 
rom" against the shrinking Jew, or to Turks ad- 
ministering indiscriminate death to the Armenian. 

5. That the strategic unity of the United King- 
dom, with the interlocking affiliations of trade and 
finance, render it impossible to grant independence 
to an island geographically so close. That there 
are the additional considerations that some of the 
people do not desire "independence," while others 
(who do) were recently in league with enemy 
Germany during war time. 

The attitude of the average educated responsible 
American would be roughly as follows : — 

I. He would say that he is constantly bom- 
barded, in the press and at meetings, with extreme 
Irish views, but rarely sees or hears the authorita- 
tive British case in reply. He may dimly suspect 
that the agitator case is overstated, but he has no 
exact data by which to check the statements. He 
is aware that in the Middle West and West the less- 
educated American is apt to fall an easy prey to the 



THE IRISH 59 

Irish propagandist, largely because the case in 
rebuttal is rarely presented. He is on the whole 
bewildered, and he often subscribes to Irish funds, 
because his sympathies are readily touched by the 
apparent fervour of the appeals, without really 
understanding the questions at issue. 

2. He would admit quite frankly that he does not 
know much about England's ameliorative work in 
Ireland during the past twenty-five years, or about 
the complicating case for loyal Ulster. He is 
puzzled because the Irish agitator the other day 
wanted Home Rule and to-day insists upon an 
independent Republic. He has heard about some 
intermediate alternative, styled "Dominion Home 
Rule," but he is not very clear what that precisely 
means. 

3. The League of Nations' proposals have riveted 
the world's attention upon the rights of small 
nations and "self-determination," and arguments 
derived from these proposals are ceaselessly pre- 
sented in the States, as applying to Ireland. The 
American would admit that he is temperamentally 
and historically prone to look with sympathy upon 
a people who (superficially) seem to him to occupy 
something of the position of the thirteen American 
States in 1776. He would experience a little diffi- 
culty in admitting that the Irish issue might as 
readily suggest to him his own civil war of i860, 



6o AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

waged more to prevent secession and preserve the 
Union than to emancipate the negro. 

4. Early in the war he was for a time rather 
disgusted with the Sinn Fein attitude in Ireland 
towards enlistment; but after April 1917 this feel- 
ing was to some extent mitigated by the ready en- 
listment of Irishmen in the States. 

5. "Why don't the British give the Irish their 
freedom ?" — is a question the American frequently 
hears from people who are often genuinely anxious 
to know the real answer. He hesitates to formu- 
late judgment against England, but he is growing 
impatient. The ceaseless Irish agitations in the 
United States spill over into local affairs, and the 
American is getting rather tired of it all. 

The Irish vote is an important factor in Ameri- 
can elections, and many of the newspapers conse- 
quently give prominence to Irish views. The 
American would argue that it is easy for the out- 
sider to place far too much importance upon such 
publications, for the matter is, as a rule, intended 
only for home consumption, like the periodical 
twisting of the British lion's tail as election times 
approach. He himself knows how to discount all 
this ; but he is aware, in relation to Irish propa- 
ganda, how dangerous are half-truths and untruths 
constantly published, especially where there is little 
or no official reply. He would quote the inimitable 



THE FOREIGNER 6i 

Mark Twain in support : "One of the most striking 
differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has 
only nine lives." 

6. He is rather keen upon more s)mipathetic 
relations between the two great branches of the 
English-speaking peoples, and to him the perennial 
Irish agitation is an anxiety and a hindrance. He 
does not presume to suggest a solution to Britain; 
he does not know enough about the matter to 
justify that; but he does very sincerely hope that 
one of these early days British statesmanship will 
find the right way. 

7. Finally, he is inclined to think there may be 
something in the famous epigram about the Irish : 
"They don't know what they want, and they won't 
be happy till they get it." 

That is, roughly and broadly, how the Irish 
question impresses the visitor to the States. At 
any time it is not easy to interpret exactly the minds 
of other men, or to boil down a thousand recollec- 
tions of talks, conversations, articles, speeches and 
incidents into a brief categorical series. However, 
I don't think the foregoing summary is very wide 
of the mark. 

It is not easy to ascertain the exact number of 
"foreigners" in the States. As a preliminary, some 
fairly exact definition of the term "foreign" would 
be requisite. The position is complicated by such 



62 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

considerations as naturalization, which outwardly 
converts the newcomer into an American citizen, 
but inwardly may leave him, in all essentials, a 
foreigner. One estimate put the number of people 
of foreign parentage at one in seven of the total 
population, say fifteen millions. Add to this the 
people of partial foreign parentage, or with foreign 
affiliations of one kind or another, and the total, 
loosely classifiable as "foreign," would be much 
greater. 

Most Australians have a general idea that for 
years hordes of people, from south-eastern Europe 
particularly, flowed into the States, always filling 
the unskilled labour market with cheap labour, and 
causing some industrial unrest by the incidence of 
this rapid immigration upon wages and the 
standard of living. The Australian has wondered 
how far these people could, at the pace of arrival, 
really fuse with the American people. The obser- 
vant visitor to a place like New York could not be 
otherwise than struck by the frequent Jewish and 
German names ; the East Side "down town" 
colonies of foreigners, hardly able to communicate 
with other national segregations across the street; 
and the many newspapers printed in foreign 
languages. A coal-mine owner told me that, in 
order to give effective legal notice to his miners, 
he had to put up notices in some fifteen languages. 



THE FOREIGNER 63 

Before the war the patriotic American was 
apparently under the impression that as soon as 
the foreigner came in at Sandy Hook, saw the 
Liberty Statue, and landed on American soil, some 
subtle alchemy worked in his soul and converted 
him, there and then, into a citizen imbued with the 
admirable principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. The American now knows better; and 
there is a strong movement on foot to "American- 
ize" the incomer in some more effective way. It is 
realized that the great "melting pot" cannot per- 
form these sudden miracles, and that the pace of 
immigration has been too great for real absorption. 
One or two friends admitted to me that they now 
regarded racial fusion as unlikely on the part of the 
average foreign parent ; but they thought the 
schools would successfully "Americanize" the 
children. (Primary education, by the way, is ad- 
mirably conducted in the States — and in excellent 
structures). Also, there was some talk in New 
York about disallowing the printing and circula- 
tion of newspapers in foreign languages, since these 
tended to foster non-American sentiment. 

Notwithstanding all this, the "melting pot" has 
not by any means been a total failure. As a rule, 
in the long run the newcomers "Americanize," 
though not really as rapidly as was supposed. It 
may be added that the undoubted trend of civiliza- 



64 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

tion in the States is towards Anglo-Saxon 
standards. 

There are one or two collateral considerations. 
In connection with this question of Americanizing 
the immigrant, Secretary Lane stated that 
illiteracy affected some ten per cent, of the popula- 
tion. This is a very serious statement. Take out 
the big proportion of educated Americans, and the 
percentage of illiteracy among the others becomes 
extraordinarily heavy. It is fortunate for Aus- 
tralia that our people are almost wholly of British 
stock, and that we have no serious foreign or negro 
problems to solve. 

In the States there was some discussion about 
authoritatively stopping immigation for a year or 
two, and I fancy from recollection that something 
of the kind was immediately in prospect. The war 
had already stopped the influx for the time being, 
and the idea was to prevent a rapid resumption for 
a year or two ; this partly in order to leave room 
for repatriating the returning soldiers. At the 
same time it was said that large numbers of 
foreigners in the States were voluntarily returning 
to their native countries, attracted by the new con- 
ditions and new frontiers set up by the peace 
treaties. With immigration restricted, and emigra- 
tion fairly free, the double movement may some- 
what alter the incidence of the "foreigner" question. 



THE NEGROES 65 

The sojourner in New York is likely to be im- 
pressed, early in his stay, by the numbers of 
coloured folk in the streets, the trams (trolleys), 
and the subways. They are usually well dressed, 
quiet and good natured; happy children tempera- 
mentally, until they get really angry or drunk — and 
then they are apt to become distinctly awkward. 
Most of the railway attendants in the passenger 
cars are blacks, as well as a proportion of waiters 
in hotels and clubs, hat and cloak room attendants, 
and the like. This kind of personal service, and the 
rough work in the open, they secure; but not the 
orchestra stalls or dress circle seats in the industrial 
theatre, for the native American keeps the skilled 
artisan work largely to himself. 

In one or two New York centres there are whole 
streets occupied by negroes. After a few of them 
secure lodgement by purchase, the whites leave the 
district, and their houses are bought up by the 
blacks at heavily depreciated prices. 

I had heard of the excellent attention given to 
travellers in the railway cars, but I confess I was 
a little disappointed. The blacks did the work well 
enough, but their manner was at times distinctly 
casual. I made enquiry, and was told this had 
arisen since the Government took control of the 
railroads. The negroes regarded themselves as 
no longer servants of a company, but rather as 



66 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

Government officials, and so comparatively secure 
from dismissal. 

The coloured soldiers have been praised and 
petted on their return from the war, though I 
gathered that, while fairly good in attack, they 
were somewhat unreliable in the more protracted, 
cold-blooded and stubborn business of defence. 
On the Continent and in London many of them had 
been allowed entry to the so-called gay life of the 
cities, and had come back with exaggerated ideas 
of their own importance. The parade of a returned 
"black" division occurred before I left New York, 
and was a tremendous event. If the onlookers 
contained a biggish percentage of the dusky- 
skinned, it remains that the general enthusiasm was 
very marked. Quite right too, in a way; but 
whether the effect on the negro was entirely salu- 
tary is another question. 

In the south, in the cotton States, the negroes still 
do not generally vote, notwithstanding the result 
of the Civil War. It is not that they are to-day 
forcibly prevented ; but it has become a sort of 
recognized custom that they shall not exercise 
their ballot-box rights. In the southern States they 
are more or less accustomed to restrictions, and 
have not hitherto seemed greatly to resent this ; 
but when large numbers recently migrated to the 
north, attracted by war work and war wages in the 



THE NEGROES 67 

munition factories and the railroads, tiiey 
instinctively looked for better civic privileges than 
they had enjoyed in the south. Had not the north 
fought in order to grant them these very things? 
Were not all the States to-day acclaiming their 
valorous performances in France? Certainly in 
the north they could freely vote; but even there 
they had to take a lower rung in the industrial 
ladder; and it is hardly to be wondered that they 
did not quite like it. 

Knowing these things, I asked several friends — 
thinkers who weigh the questions of the day — how 
they regarded the case, especially in view of the 
prolific black birth-rate, and the total black popula- 
tion of some twelve or thirteen millions. As a 
rule they did not regard the question as a serious 
one. A particularly well-informed legal man said 
that if the black birth-rate was high, so was their 
juvenile death-rate, with the consequence that the 
coloured total was not rapidly growing. I had a 
vague impression that these good friends rather 
deliberately closed their eyes to the trouble, and 
that their views expressed their hopes quite as 
much as their convictions. 

I was not really much surprised, a month or two 
after I left New York, to read about the serious 
"coloured" riots at Washington and Chicago, when 
the military had to be called out, and quite a 



68 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

number of deaths occurred. In Washington the 
trouble seemed to have started over unwelcome 
attentions pressed by blacks upon white women, 
and in both cases the deeper underlying sentiment 
seems to have been, a sense of injury because equal 
civil rights were not accorded. 

My wife and I were privileged to visit a great 
military camp near New York, capable of accommo- 
dating some 85,000 trainees, and we were kindly 
shown round by the Commandant. As we went 
the rounds we passed a negro corps, headed by 
their band. The evident delight of the men with 
their uniforms and the music and the "show" 
generally was both amusing and interesting. The 
Commandant said they were just good-natured 
children, "tickled to death" with the military pomp 
and circumstance. He told us one or two amusing 
yarns about these men. 

Of one big black soldier he asked this question : 
"What would you do, Sam, if you suddenly saw a 
big German in front of you, armed with rifle and 
bayonet, and ready to go for you ?" At once came 
the reply : "I just done quick, Boss, what he told !" 
— this with a broad grin. 

A returned coloured soldier, in response to a 
query, said that he had been a "door-keeper." 
Asked to explain, he said he opened a little door at 
the butt end of the gun, while his comrades slid in 



THE NEGROES 69 

a shell. He added that after the shot he used to 
jump on the gun-carriage, and defiantly call across 
No Man's Land : "Kaiser, count yo' men !" 

I spoke of these men doing hat and coat 
attendant work in clubs, and some of them exhibit 
quite extraordinary proficiency in their duties. 
One well-known negro never gave identifying 
discs or tickets, trusting wholly to memory. To 
test him, a club member one day said : "Sam, how 
did you know that was my hat?" Sam replied 
that he did not know it was the member's hat. The 
latter then said: "Well — why did you give it to 
me?" "Cos, Boss, you gave it to me." 



SECTION IV 

Industrial and Financial 

The world-war has released spiritual forces as yet 
incalculable, both in their scale and in their inci- 
dence. Old-established ideas have disappeared for 
ever; new conceptions of rights and wrongs 
have not yet crystallized. The psychology of the 
Labour world has undergone its changes too, and 
the old answers will no longer suffice ; the necessary 
readjustments still remain to be determined. The 
immediate symptom is universal industrial unrest, 
and America is no exception to the rule. But the 
Australian reader will misunderstand the American 
situation unless he first masters the essential 
differences between American and Australian 
labour problems. 

In Australia the manual workers are almost 
wholly British, the "foreign" percentage being 
negligible in point of numbers. These workers, too, 
are as a class educated up to the primary standard 
(often, individually, well beyond it), while the per- 
centage of illiterates is insignificant; they are 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 71 

mostly unionized; they have developed a powerful 
political organization; and they have taken part in 
a twenty years' experiment of Compulsory Arbitra- 
tion. 

In the United States the complications to which 
I have already referred are set up by the foreigner 
and the negro. These people do the unskilled 
rough work, leaving skilled work as a rule to the 
American-born. The latter are always surprised 
to hear that in England the British manual worker 
does the rough work. The American at home ex- 
pects to enjoy a higher standard of wages and of 
living than the foreigner; and he considers him- 
self as to some extent losing caste if he works 
alongside foreigners or negroes. He has usually 
enjoyed educational advantages like those available 
in Australia — illiteracy characterizes rather the 
other two sections of American labour. Also he is 
to a large extent unionized, whereas the unskilled 
workers as a rule are not. Less than three million 
workers in the United States are as yet unionized; 
they are the aristocrats of the labour world, and 
exercise in the industrial sphere a strength out of 
proportion to their numbers. They usually succeed 
in carrying, sooner or later (at any rate of late 
years), their demands for improved conditions. At 
the same time (as I have mentioned elsewhere) 
they have hardly begun to develop the political side 



72 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

of the movement. Nor have they sought — they do 
not seem even to desire — any Compulsory Arbitra- 
tion machinery. 

The United States are utilizing automatic and 
labour-saving machinery to a greater extent than 
other countries, and this explains their large out- 
put per man as compared with Europe. Com- 
paratively, in the States mechanism plays a greater 
part than muscle. 

Furthermore. I fancy piece-work is practised in 
America to a far greater extent than in Australia, 
Piece-work and bonus systems automatically re- 
ward the more skilled and rapid worker; but our 
Australian Unions seem to resent rewards of that 
kind, preferring that all unionists should move 
together, the brisk and capable operator along with 
the dullard. I have the impression that in the 
States these systems are in places attacked by 
unionists as tending to overwork men and to de- 
crease the number of jobs. Still, I think I am 
correct in the broad idea that there is more piece- 
work there than in Australia. 

I was asked to speak about the Australian phase 
of Compulsory Arbitration at one of the periodical 
dinners of a Society which cultivates the discussion 
of such topics. I stated that the system was one- 
sided in application, and basically a failure, since 
it had encouraged rather than prevented strikes. 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL -jz 

Mr. Gompers, who was present, cordially agreed, 
and said that he regarded it as an impracticable 
method of settling industrial differences. In this 
he apparently represents the general view taken by 
Unionized Labour in the States. 

In Canada also I inquired into the local system 
of Compulsory Arbitration, and there the punitive 
provisions cover individual fines, whereas ours pro- 
vide possible imprisonment. However, a recog- 
nized expert on their Act admitted to me that, 
when it came to big masses of men, they could no 
more successfully extort the fines than we could 
gaol the men. In this sense legal compulsion seems 
bound to break down wherever it is attempted; for 
it is useless without punitive provisions, and such 
provisions cannot, as a rule, be enforced against 
big Unions. 

The United States appeared to be moving 
towards the "get together" method — "round table" 
discussion — in the spirit of the British Whitley Re- 
ports. Here and there big employers are showing 
a readiness to co-operate with their workmen. 
While retaining final control, these employers 
readily recognize that the men are entitled to know- 
much more about the industry in which they toil 
than has hitherto been the case. Many employers, 
too. have made some headway in humanitarian 
provisions for their work-people — such as subsi- 



74 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

dized benefit and pension schemes, libraries, 
gymnasiums, and the like. This movement is not 
universal, but it is growing, and likely to be success- 
ful ; and that is more than can be said of our Com- 
pulsory Arbitration. With us the artificial antagon- 
isms and delays of court hearings tend to create 
bitterness and to keep the parties asunder ; whereas 
the humanizing atmosphere of direct discussion, 
round a table, by the parties concerned in the 
particular industry, must surely lead to more rapid 
and satisfactory results. The one good feature of 
our Australian system is the basic living wage ; but 
that can be independently secured. 

America is no more free from strikes and the 
"go-slow" cancer than we are. The "go-slow" 
trouble is a very difficult one to measure exactly, 
or to express quantitatively. I propose, therefore, 
to say no more than this. I often enquired about 
its extent in the trades based upon day wages, and 
my general conclusion was that it was not quite so 
severe as irritated men of affairs were inclined to 
assert; on the other hand, if a direct comparison 
could be instituted, it would probably be found 
worse, on the whole, there than in Australia. Em- 
ployers in the States do not hesitate to pay big 
wages, and naturally want a fairly commensurate 
production. They realize that the "go-slow" evil, 
if protracted, must lead eventually to financial ruin 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 75 

for employers and employed alike; while it exer- 
cises a terribly deteriorative influence on the 
character of the worker who deliberately "slacks." 

During the war — i.e., since April, 19 17 — the 
United States Government has done its utmost to 
secure continuance of work, and to prevent strikes ; 
but by the doubtful expedient of frequent and 
heavy increases of wages, and the ready granting of 
other demands made by the workers. Conse- 
quently wages are now at a very high level, and the 
labour bodies have virtually thrown down a general 
challenge to anyone in authority, Governmental or 
private, who may seek to reduce these rates. 

Since the Armistice there have been several 
serious strikes, on various grounds. They are, as 
a rule, the work of the "foreign" agitator, rather 
than of the unionized American workman ; but 
behind them all is widespread discontent with the 
extremely high cost of living and with "profiteer- 
ing." There has been profiteering in the States, as 
in other countries, and no doubt the workmen hear 
very exaggerated tales of the profiteer's doings. 
The recent big strike in the steel trade is said to 
have been largely the work of the foreign element, 
coupled possibly with some restiveness at what is 
regarded by the men, rightly or wrongly, as the 
unapproachable attitude of the steel magnates. 
One of the Labour leaders recently wrote: "We 



76 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

have a democratic form of Government, but an 
aristocratic control of industry. So we now ad- 
vance to the new crusade with all the fervour of pil- 
grims." There is probably just enough truth in 
such a statement to render it awkward to contest. 

Mr. Gompers is quite a remarkable old man, and 
a very able one. He would have made a consider- 
able mark on his time, apart from his recent 
association with President Wilson at Paris and 
elsewhere. The labour world is led by the "Ameri- 
can Federation of Labour," and that Federation is 
led by Mr. Gompers. It contains awkward and 
fractious elements — I.W.W.s and Bolsheviki — and 
these unruly elements Mr. Gompers kept in strong 
and salutary check during the war, though at any 
moment now trouble may break out. Mr. Gompers 
has no easy task. He is a wise man, with no sym- 
pathy for "go-slow" or revolutionary methods. 
One wonders on whom his mantle will fall. 

Farm labour was said to be already scarce when 
I left the States in June, 1919, and this applied also 
to the blacks in the southern cotton-fields. The 
war had stopped the incoming stream of 
"foreigners" : many of those who had already 
arrived were heading back to Europe, and some 
had risen in the social scale. In a city like New 
York domestic servants were becoming almost as 
extinct as the dodo or the moa ; wages, for the few 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL "77 

available, were consequently high, ranging from 
£2 to £5 per week. People on the smaller 
salaries cannot pay such wages, and the future pre- 
sents some undoubtedly serious problems. Since 
I left the States I have seen estimates showing the 
probability of a large shortage of labour generally 
in the early future, notwithstanding the repatria- 
tion of their soldiers. If so, then it is a virtual 
certainty that wages will not fall : they may even 
rise yet higher. 

Before the war, wages in the unskilled trades 
were about 6s. per day, now they are about 14s. 
For ordinary skilled work before April, 191 7, 24s. 
to 30s. a day was paid ; to-day in some cases it com- 
mands £3 or more. Possibly there will be some 
downward adjustments of the exceptional rates, 
but it is hard to forecast anything in that connec- 
tion. Early this year the cost of living was, 
broadly taken, nearly double that of Australia, 
while the purchasing power of money was little 
more than half ours. In their industries mass pro- 
duction and standardization — with plenty of the 
most modern machinery — enabled employers to pay 
high wages with a fair amount of ease. They were 
also assisted by the huge profits they made during 
the earlier stages of the war, before America was 
in it. At the same time they have to solve (just as 
we have) several grave Labour problems before 



78 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

they can regard the industrial outlook as reason- 
ably secure and serene. 

When a great nation of 107,000,000 people 
suddenly goes "dry," there are likely to be both 
questionings and anxieties amongst neighbour 
nations. To the United States it means a loss of 
revenue from Customs and Excise of some 
£300,000,000 annually; and it also brings about a 
serious situation in one or two Western States, 
such as California, whose wines were beginning 
to be exported in fairly large quantities. It also 
means a material loss of business to England, 
whence spirits were freely exported to America — 
and similarly to France, in respect of wines. 

I was in the States when the national referen- 
dum decided the matter. The curious feature was 
how very unexpected (at any rate in New York) 
the decision seemed to be. The average citizen did 
not appear to have thought much about it, and 
seemed to be taken completely by surprise. The 
position was accentuated by the fact that the 
decision (which takes effect from the i6th January, 
1920) provided for no compensation. Not only 
was a traffic, which had grown up under the 
law, to be extinguished without notice or com- 
pensation, but the sudden cessation of the many 
trades and occupations directly and indirectly con- 



THE LIQUOR QUESTION 79 

nected with liquor must obviously create a large 
number of unemployed; and this did not seem to 
have been particularly considered in advance by 
anyone I encountered. 

Actually the country went dry on the ist July, 
1919, but that was a temporary six months pro- 
vision under special war powers, to cover the 
period of demobilization. It was hoped by many 
that President Wilson would intervene, and miti- 
gate the rigours of the six-months fiat by making 
an exception in favour of light wines (in the 
interests of Calif ornian vignerons) and beers con- 
taining 2.75 per cent, of alcohol or less. In the 
event this proved a vain hope, and on the date 
named the United States went "dry" as regards the 
public sale of alcoholic liquor. 

This temporary arrangement expires on Dec. 31, 
and the "national" decision will then apply. In 
Australia, a national referendum would be voted on 
by all electors in the country, and would require to be 
carried not only by a majority of all votes, but 
also by a majority of States. In the United States 
the reference is to the legislatures of the forty-eight 
States, and if three-fourths ratify, the question is 
deemed carried. It has been alleged that the 
American temperance fanatics did not hesitate to 
bring something very like undue pressure to bear 



8o AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

upon legislators, not only with regard to future 
voting support, but also by raking up personal 
records from incompletely buried pasts. However 
that may be, it is a certainty that the ardour and 
organized work on the temperance side were wide- 
spread and efifective. Many of the churches aided 
the movement ; in places, it is said, business boy- 
cotts were utilized to press the cause. The "wet" 
counter campaign seems to have lacked anything 
like the same scope or cohesion. Many of the 
brewers were Germans, and their voices in protest 
were, at that particular time, hardly raised, and 
would in any case have been ineffective. The 
nation's decision came literally with the unexpected- 
ness of a thief in the night. 

More than the necessary three-fourths — in fact 
45 out of the 48 — of the States ratified, and 
the requisite Enforcement Bill has lately been 
passed. This measure prohibits the sale (save for 
medicinal purposes) of all liquor containing over 
one-half per cent, of alcohol. Citizens may keep 
liquor privately ; but they may at any time be called 
upon to prove that they do not hold it for sale. 
Finally, there is to be no domiciliary search. The 
nation is deemed to have spoken, and the national 
voice has to be obeyed. It will need a reverse 
decision at another referendum to turn the United 



THE LIQUOR QUESTION 8i 

States "wet" again; but another referendum in the 
early future seems rather unlikely. 

What then were the main arguments utilized 
during this extraordinary campaign? Some were 
of course mossy with old familiarity; but let us 
classify the two sets after the fashion of the 
sagacious Burleigh when he was advising good 
Queen Bess on the questions of the day. 

Against Prohibition. — i. To the American the 
idea of reasonable personal freedom is peculiarly 
dear, for his separate national existence is based 
upon a struggle for freedom one hundred and forty 
years ago. Why — he would say — should ninety- 
nine moderate drinkers be denied an occasional 
glass because the hundredth sometimes indulges in 
that "beggarly damnation drunkenness?" Why 
not be stricter with that one man, and with the 
saloons which over-supply him? Why deny the 
genial host the reasonable pleasure of entertaining 
his guests on traditional and strictly moderate 
lines ? 

2. He would add that the excessive drinker lacks 
self-control. If the delinquent is debarred from 
liquor, he will inevitably break the conventions in 
other and probably more harmful ways (e.g., by 
the use of drugs or by patronizing illicit stills) 
with worse effects on health and character. 



82 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

3. He would also urge the danger of unemploy- 
ment and the Californian aspects of the case, to 
which references have already been made. 

4. The Bible does not interdict moderate drink- 
ing, say the "wets." 

5. If prohibition is to be the new law of the land, 
why not honestly compensate activities which have 
grown up under the sanction of the old law ? 

6. Total prohibition converts into a crime that 
which the honest convictions of masses of people 
refuse to consider as such. 

For Prohibition. — i. Increased industrial 
efficiency, with decreased crime and pauperism, was 
predicted. In a country like America, where 
efficiency is especially appreciated, this argument 
carries far. The "wets" say that many criminals 
plead "drunkenness" in order to mitigate sentences, 
whether they were really drunk or not. If, how- 
ever, the quoted statistics of decreased sentences 
and reduced pauperism in States already dry are 
correct — as the "drys" strongly assert — they are 
difficult to argue away. The "drys" add that, in 
order to attain the more blessed condition indicated 
by the statistics, the moderate drinker should be 
ready to "forswear sack." 

2. The "drys" dwelt on evils such as the two 
hundred New York night cabarets and dancing 



THE LIQUOR QUESTION 83 

saloons, where young girls were plied with liquor 
by old men of the Silenus type. Also, they urged 
the danger to the community when negroes over- 
indulged in alcohol and became satyrs or assassins, 
with the inevitable consequence of "white" 
reprisals. 

3. In answer to the "wet" arguments, about sly 
drinking and drugs, the "drys" suggested stringent 
legislation to suppress private stills and the illicit 
sale of drugs. (Something has already been done 
as regards drugs.) 

4. No great amount of unemployment — the 
"drys" added — need result from abolition. The 
breweries, they said, could turn to the manufacture 
of ice-cream and candies, for which a greater de- 
mand would arise when alcohol was abolished. 

5. Why trouble to compensate an unholy traffic, 
said the "drys." (A poor argument: but freely 
used. ) 

After all, the prohibition movement was nothing 
new. A number of States were already "dry" ; 
several others had local option. The juxtaposition 
of "dry" and "wet" States did not lend itself to 
ready enforcement of the law in the former ; but 
national "dryness" is quite another matter. Im- 
ports can now be effectually barred ; the rest is a 
question of countering private ingenuity and deter- 



84 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

mination. The W.C.T.U. have been at active work 
since 1873, and the Anti-Saloon League since 1893. 
On the whole the women were "dry"; for it is they 
who feel the burden of the trouble when the bread- 
winner wastes his wages and dissipates his health 
in saloons. In the Middle West and West the 
better educated classes were also very largely "dry" 
advocates, because in those regions the saloon 
typified all that was worst in social and political 
life. In the East — for instance, in a city like New 
York — these classes do not personally encounter 
the saloon, and its influences as they do further out. 

"Will the States remain 'dry'?" was a question 
often asked. The answer is not easily supplied. 
The nation will do rather extraordinary things in 
response to any moral plea which appeals to its 
emotional side: but in this particular decision one 
had the idea that the majority was more surprised 
into it that really convinced. At the same time 
there it is: technically a national decision, and one 
not easily reversed. 

Most wealthy people, no doubt, have started the 
new era with well-stocked cellars. Manual toilers 
may yet have something to say, since there are now 
no saloons to supply them with "long beers" after 
heavy work in dusty or hot surroundings, while the 
more fortunate owners of cellars can indulge at ease, 



THE LIQUOR QUESTION 85 

at any rate to the limit of the stocks now on hand. 
One wary New Yorker of sixty-two is said to have 
consulted a physician about his reasonable expecta- 
tion of life. Upon being told "about ten years" he 
went off and laid in stocks of assorted liquors esti- 
mated to last twenty years. 

In the Dominion of New Zealand the National 
Efficiency Board reported in July, 1917, on the 
total prohibition question, and recommended that, 
in the event of prohibition being carried, compensa- 
tion was "manifestly" necessary for all whose 
legitimate interests were abolished. Incidentally 
the report foreshadowed as results of prohibition 
decreased crime and pauperism, with increased 
national efficiency. 

The United Kingdom seems quite unlikely to 
attempt total "dryness." 

In the United States it was freely said (whether 
by way of joke or seriously was not always 
apparent) that there was at any rate one mitigation 
ahead. Pure grape juice, unfermented, with a 
pinch of yeast and a couple of raisins, would pro- 
vide all the hilarity any festive occasion could 
reasonably require. 

During the war the world's shipping suffered 
losses — from enemy action and sea perils — aggre- 



86 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

gating some fifteen million tons, of which the 
British share was about nine million tons. 

Here are some significant figures, collected from 
the annual report (1918-19) of the Chamber of 
Shipping in the United Kingdom : — 

British losses of shipping during Tons, 

the war . . . . . . , , 9,031,828 

Gains — British construction 4,342,296 
Purchase abroad 530,000 

Enemy ships captured 716,520 

5,588,816 



Net loss . . 3,443,012 

Comparison of British and American Pre-war 
AND Post-war Shipping 

July 31, 1914, British gross tonnage 

(steam) . . . . . . . . 20,523,706 

Oct. 31, 1918, British gross tonnage 

(steam) . . . . . . . . 16,859,936 

A decrease of 17 per cent. 

July 31, 1914, United States, gross 

tonnage (steam) . . . . . . 2,069,637 

Oct. 31, 1918, United States, gross 

tonnage (steam) .. .. .. *5, 116,521 

An increase of 147 per cent. 

*No indication is given whether this total includes 
captured German tonnage. 



THE MERCANTILE MARINE 87 

British construction is proceeding again, and 
very skilled construction it is. One of these bright 
days the old total tonnage will be restored: but, in 
the new world-situation, how are we to revive the 
old profusion of cargoes? 

For some years Americans have felt worried 
about their comparatively shipless condition, in- 
volving as it did the result that a microscopic pro- 
portion of American goods was carried in Ameri- 
can vessels. There was, too, possibly an inclination 
to glance enviously at the extensive British tonnage 
and its wide-spread utility. In July, 1914, America 
owned about two million tons ; rather more than 
four years later she had over five million tons, and 
there were about 340 shipbuilding yards scattered 
about the country, all capable of a vast total output. 
No wonder the public mind was full of ambitious 
programmes for the future. There are, however, 
some obstacles to be overcome before America can 
stand high on the list in the friendly rivalries of 
the world's ocean carriage. 

At enormous cost and in great haste the States 
during the war built wooden and steel vessels. At 
the same time, in order to avoid stoppages of work, 
Government increased wages and prices of 
materials freely and frequently. In the wooden 
vessels unseasoned timber was used. When I left 
in June, 1919, the Government was wisely doing its 



88 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

utmost to sell these comparatively ineffective ships, 
and was paying huge compensation to cancel 
wooden construction contracts. Government steel 
construction is, no doubt, improving in quality : but 
I was told that the earlier vessels were not regarded 
by experts as specially successful. The rapid 
establishment of enormous shipyards is compara- 
tively an easy matter ; but shipbuilding is no simple 
science, and it may require many years to evolve 
the requisite surroundings for high-class construc- 
tion such as that at Belfast and on the Clyde. 

When I left the States, the American Govern- 
ment seemed likely to go out of the shipbuilding 
business : for there was a strong feeling abroad that 
only war justified Governmental construction. 
Now the war was over, there was a very general 
sentiment that the sooner Government ceased such 
work the better. If this cessation comes about, 
somg yards may be rather left "in the air" ; and, in 
any case, the original heavy cost of construction 
will require large sums to be written off in order 
to put the vessels built in war-time on a reasonable 
capital basis. * Feeling is equally strong against the 
running of vessels by the Government, and no doubt 
the new Governmental tonnage will presently pass 
into private hands. 

The conditions secured by the Seamens' Union, 
and translated into Governmental regulations, 



THE MERCANTILE MARINE 89 

render it difficult for the American mercantile 
marine to compete successfully with other tonnage. 
More men have to be employed in the vessels than 
are strictly needed ; wages are comparatively high ; 
and there are very special rules as to food and 
accommodation. Owners in consequence often 
sought foreign registration. I heard, too, doubts 
expressed whether the States could find enough 
American sailors for a really big tonnage, for the 
opportunities on land — especially the railways — 
attracted men away from the sea. If these con- 
ditions are to remain, the shipping interests will no 
doubt suggest Government subsidies to counter- 
vail the less onerous "foreign" regulations. There 
is a strong sentiment in favour of private owner- 
ship and management ; but the idea of subsidies in 
such matters is not popular. If subsidies were 
granted, there would no doubt be added collateral 
conditions about Governmental supervision and 
regulation of freights. 

It will be seen, then, that the ambition to possess 
a great mercantile marine is likely to require very 
careful adjustment before it can be consummated. 
The States are keen to capture more of the South 
American trade, and to that end have been adver- 
tising some of the big captured German tonnage as 
a special inducement. The Panama Canal also 
opens up vistas of possibilities yet to be fully 



90 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

tested. The American shipping men I met in New 
York were not, as a rule, very sanguine about the 
future ; but the war had only recently ended, and it 
was too early to form final conclusions. Too many 
important factors were still undetermined. The 
nation is so ready to undertake big projects, and 
its monetary means are so great, that one hesi- 
tates to say that it is unlikely to achieve anything 
in reason which it specially desires. 

Everyone has heard of "Hog Island." Let me 
give a few salient details about it. A little more 
than two years ago it was a tract of waste land on 
the Delaware River. By September, 1918, it had 
become the biggest shipyard in the world, with 
accommodation for 34,000 workmen, and with fifty 
shipways for 8,000-ton steel vessels. All this was 
roughly one year's work. The money put into it 
was enormous ; all sorts of denunciations were 
hurled at it in the press and the legislature, without, 
however, disclosing any maladministration. It was 
war-work, carried out at breathless speed and quite 
regardless of cost. 

There are some points in this connection which 
competing nations would do well to study care- 
fully. American experts claim; (i) that they can 
secure the requisite steel more cheaply than other 
nations; (2) that they can complete an 8,000-ton 
vessel in twenty-five weeks; (3) that standardized 



RAILWAYS 91 

construction of a maximum of fifty vessels at a 
time reduces the cost of each very materially, as 
against construction by threes and fours ; (4) 
finally, they cite the increasing skill and efficiency 
of their yard labour. This last feature, they claim, 
is attested by the entirely satisfactory running of 
nearly fifty vessels so far launched. Construction 
has slowed down since the Armistice ; but where 
exactly will such a yard figure in the future ship- 
construction of the world? Though the largest 
yard, it is yet only one of many yards in the States. 
Whether you entirely accept the claim to first-class 
construction on the American system or not, here 
is matter to give any nation pause. It may be that 
the "fabricated" vessel has not quite the finish and 
"soul" of the vessel built in the historic yards. On 
this point I am not personally capable of pro- 
nouncing; but he would be rash who would affirm 
that the American tonnage is unlikely to sell well 
enough, or to work well enough for all reasonable 
sea-carriage requirements. 

In Australia the railways have been always State- 
owned; not as the outcome of any particular 
economic doctrine, but because there were no 
private funds to undertake the work. The State 
capitals were hundreds of miles apart ; and as each 
State began, years ago, its modest programme of 
railroad building, it did so on any gauge deemed 



92 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

suitable at the place and moment, with little thought 
for the awkward situation likely to arise when the 
rail systems met at the State borders. For their 
main lines Queensland and West Australia adopted 
the 3 ft. 6 in. gauge; Victoria and South Aus- 
tralia the 5 ft. 3 in.; and New South Wales the 
4 ft. 8^ in. The "transcontinental" Federal section, 
one thousand miles long, which connects Adelaide 
with Perth, has the 4 ft. 8^ in. gauge. There 
have been many discussions about unifying the 
gauges, but the cost would be heavy, and the 
war has postponed such work sine. die. Strategi- 
cally these breaks of gauge may be gravely dis- 
advantageous, but for goods and passengers the 
trouble is not so serious in practice as it might 
seem. Most goods pass from capital to capital by 
sea, rail transit being too costly for such long haul- 
age. Passengers suffer some inconvenience where 
one system meets another of different gauge ; but 
even so it amounts to little more than crossing a 
platform with the light luggage, while the railway 
people see to the heavy "booked" luggage. 

In the United States the railways are all privately 
owned, and under normal circumstances privately 
managed. The gauge is the standard 4 feet 8^ inch 
practically throughout. Rates were under State 
control for some few years before the war, with 
considerable clamour from the corporations con- 



RAILWAYS 93 

cerned that the schedules were too low to permit of 
profitable working. Unfler the Anti-Trust laws 
these lines were unable to co-operate or combine 
for purposes of rate maintenance. On the whole 
the management was good, and the systems were 
well run ; but latterly the reduced earning power in 
some cases had led to deterioration of the perma- 
nent ways. 

As a war-measure the Government on the 31st 
December, 191 7, took over the management of the 
railways, mainly in order to cut out needless ser- 
vices, and thus save labour and coal. Owners were, 
in the meantime, to receive compensation equal to 
standard returns, and for a time were able to sit 
back without anxiety and watch the Governmental 
manipulation of their lines. Notwithstanding the 
advantages of centralized control. Governmental 
management was very largely condemned as un- 
satisfactory, and in its hands the permanent ways 
have further deteriorated. The wages of railway 
operatives were increased with almost feverish 
readiness, thus adding to the burden on the public 
Treasury; but low railage rates were maintained, 
and the owners in the background began to be 
anxious. About the time I left the States (June, 
1919) a .very vexed issue had arisen — in the legis- 
latures and elsewhere — over the question whether 
Government control was to be protracted, and, if 



94 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

not, on what terms the lines were to be returned to 
owners. For the latter the situation had become 
distinctly awkward, since the ways had been "let 
down" rather badly, and the rates chargeable were 
said to be as a rule insufficient under the new con- 
ditions of wage-rates and cost of materials. Also, 
many millions were needed to restore the condition 
of the tracks. 

Many plans came under discussion, but it would 
be profitless to examine them in any detail here. 
Broadly, it looked as if the lines would presently 
be returned to private ownership, under some kind 
of Governmental control as to rates, but probably 
with increased rate schedules. 

Since I left America the labour bodies connected 
with the railroads have put forward a strong 
demand for nationalization of the lines, ivith labour 
participation in both management and profits. 
The idea of Governmental ownership and manage- 
ment is not, however, palatable to the average 
responsible American mind. They believe very 
strongly in the superior efficiency of experienced 
private control — supervised, if necessary. Labour's 
demand for participation in profits is curiously 
illogical. It starts with the notion of ousting the 
present private owner, whose capital, initiative and 
brains created these railway systems, so that he 
shall not participate in profits : while the railroad's 



FINANCE 95 

manual workers, who did none of these things, are 
to participate. 

When the Government assumed control of the 
railways, it also, about the same time, took over the 
Telegraph and Telephone systems. In these cases, 
too, the comparison between Governmental and 
private management seems to have been markedly 
in favour of the latter. The systems were recently 
handed back to the owners — on the eve of a 
serious strike declared by the operators in both 
sections. 

The world's trading and financial interests are 
so interconnected that a nation prospers best when 
all other nations are prosperous. Under the spur 
of necessity and by dint of much ingenuity the 
nations had gradually and laboriously worked 
themselves into a fairly sound position for mutual 
trading. Supplies of gold, with its concomitant 
credit, were not evenly and proportionately divided, 
because nations differed widely in thrift and skill, 
and in business qualities : still, these things were 
distributed in a way tolerably efficient for purposes 
of interchanges. Then came the great war, and the 
carefully built structure disappeared. The United 
States emerged with too much financial power, 
completely upsetting the old healthy balance. The 
United Kingdom is still financially strong; but its 



96 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

influence on international finance is somewhat cur- 
tailed for a time. One or two neutrals prospered 
during the war, but are negligible from any large 
point of view : while the other belligerents are 
seriously crippled for many a day to come. Mean- 
time the United States have more gold than they 
know what to do with, and trade balances are so 
strongly in their favour as to upset rates of ex- 
change and discourage other countries from pur- 
chasing their exports. It may be a long and weary 
pilgrimage before the world's resources will be once 
more healthily distributed for purposes of inter- 
change. Patience and courage and skill will be 
needed to bring about a really sound international 
business basis. 

How it was calculated I do not know, but I 
recently read a statement of apparent authenticity 
— at any rate it was made in a well-weighed and 
responsible article. It was this : — 

1. In igi2 the United Kingdom did nearly 2 J 
per cent, of international trade. 

(We know she was a great creditor nation, and 
was said to have invested outside Britain over four 
thousand millions sterling.) 

2. In that same year the United States did nearly 
10 per cent of international trade. 

(They were a debtor nation, with a capital 
mainly absorbed in their great internal markets and 



FINANCE 97 

shares and industries. Before the war they were 
not serious investors in foreign securities.) 

The war has greatly widened the outlook for 
American moneyed interests, and the future is 
likely to disclose a readiness to expand abroad 
which has been comparatively absent in the past. 

Before America came into the war, her external 
investment movement started with the successful 
Anglo-French War Loan of i 100,000,000, notwith- 
standing strong German opposition and thinly- 
veiled threats. That the loan was a remarkable 
success becomes apparent when it is realized that it 
was not only contrary to their pre-existing 
tendency to confine themselves to American invest- 
ments, but that the money market was at the time a 
little strained by buying back American securities 
which the Allies were selling in order to stabilize 
the exchanges. First and last some £600,000,000 
of such securities were bought back during the war, 
and in addition the Allies sent across some 
£240,000,000 in gold. All this was not enough to 
pay for war materials bought by the Allies, and 
special loans were made by the States in order to 
redress the trade balances and assist the Allies. 
Up to the date on which America entered the war 
(April, 1917) the Allies had borrowed from her 
about £600,000,000; while the whole of the war- 
borrowings amounted to about £2.000.000,000. .A.s 



98 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

against this a total of only £9,000,000 was lent to 
Germany — of course before April, 19 17. 

This might be styled the external financial war 
contribution of the United States. Super-added 
was the internal effort. I was in the country when 
two or three war loans were floated. The 
thoroughness of the canvass and the general 
enthusiasm were alike admirable. The great 
bankers patriotically assisted, while the concentra- 
tion of resources in the fourteen Banks of the 
Federal Reserve System made comparatively easy 
the carrying through of large money operations. 
Taxation became heavy, especially income and ex- 
cess profits taxes ; for the United States were said 
to have raised about one-third of the war costs by 
taxation. 

Great Britain started the war with a national 
debt of £645,000,000. In March, 1919. her total 
debt had risen to £7,435,000,000, of which 
£1,350,000,000 represented external debt. As 
against this £1.350,000,000, the Allies and 
Dominions owed Great Britain £1,739.000,000. The 
United States Government in 1914 had a trifling 
debt ; the people made tremendous profits from 
August, 1914, to April, 1917; then they came into 
the struggle themselves, and began to spend money 
like water. They now owe (internally) some 



FINANCE 99 

£5.200,000,000, of which about £2,000,000,000 was 
lent to the Allies. 

I have already mentioned the great resources of 
the forty-eight States in products of all sorts : the 
initiative and industrial courage and efficiency of 
their people: the large accumulations of gold, and 
the almost unlimited extensibility of their credit. 
With all these favouring circumstances, will New 
York displace London as the world's money centre 
— as the recognized clearing-house for international 
exchanges of goods? Some American financiers 
probably have this ambition : and they may think 
that the recent transfers of very large money re- 
sources to New York render it a certainty. Behind 
the ambition there is, no doubt, a little jealousy of 
the extraordinary position hitherto occupied by 
London in this connection. Other American 
financiers, I think, have a wider and a juster view. 
They realize the inevitable interdependence of all 
great money centres, and they recognize that the 
geographical situation of London — next door to 
Europe — gives it a great natural fitness for the 
work it has so admirably performed. 

London had (and has) some very remarkable 
recommendations. The United Kingdom bought 
from all countries and sold to all. She lent funds 
to all who were able to offer reliable securities, and 
this — as a rule — without imposing onerous trading 



loo AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

conditions. London was the one really free gold 
market in the universe. The insular position of 
the country was a security, rendered doubly secure 
by our unmatched navy. The short loan market 
was unique: the steady interest rates, wisely regu- 
lated by the Bank of England, rendered time trans- 
actions as a rule closely calculable: and the world- 
wide reputation for integrity of the great money 
houses, gained in three hundred years of trading, 
had no parallel elsewhere. Some of these features 
may be inpaired for a while; but the majority re- 
main, and will continue to operate when normal 
conditions recur. 

New York has not yet evolved a short loan 
market in any sense comparable to that of London ; 
and it is yet very young, as a leading banker 
frankly admitted to me, in the machinery and 
knowledge of international trading. The money 
rates are not regulated by any such system as that 
supervised by the Bank of England ; and the mar- 
ket is consequently rather at the mercy of 
occasional attacks of nerves on the part of the 
public. British interest rates remained almost 
without alteration throughout the war, and notes 
were freely accepted as legal tender — exhibiting a 
wonderful proof of the nation's confidence in its 
money Institutions. American rates have altered 
frequently, and sometimes (for a day or two) to 



FINANCE loi 

levels unknown in England. At any moment, in 
one of those sudden flurries characteristic of the 
New York market, the rates may rise to lo, 15, or 
even 20 per cent, per annum for day to day money. 

Possibly some little diversion of the international 
clearing-house business may yet result, so that it 
will not be quite so exclusively a London job as it 
was in the past. But that London will be seriously 
superseded in the early future is by no means likely. 

I encountered men in New York who were quite 
aware of the great profits amassed by the United 
States in the earlier stages of the war, and they 
realized two resulting obligations. One a sort of 
duty laid upon them to assist the war-stricken 
European nations ; the other a necessary extension 
of credit to those nations, to enable them to pur- 
chase in the States the materials for reconstruction. 
One trusts the views of such men will prevail, 
rather than the ideas of exponents of the doctrine 
that every loan must carry strict trading advant- 
ages for the States — in other words, that here is 
America's chance to exploit the sore necessities 
of impoverished Europe. 

I deemed it only right to speak frankly in the 
States, more than once, about certain phases of 
future Australian-American trade. An Australian, 
speaking in New York just before I arrived, had 
(possibly without intention) given the impression 



I02 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

that a commanding proportion of Australian trade 
was America's for the asking. I pointed out: — 
(i) that our sense of patriotism — not to mention 
our monetary obhgations — would always direct a 
large proportion of our trade to the United King- 
dom; (2) that this United Kingdom trade had been 
interrupted, in many directions, by war urgencies, 
but would certainly be resumed presently; (3) that 
Australia would not desire to expand trade with 
any nation to the detriment of her trade with the 
United Kingdom; (4) that America's opportunity 
lay in the direction of the trade previously done 
with Germany. 

Americans, in my experience, never resented 
frank honest statements : and they did not in the 
least resent the foregoing: though these must have 
sounded a little disappointing in their ears, after 
the glowing periods of that previous Australian 
speaker. 

Pre-war Germany was a free buyer of nearly all 
Australian products, and we shall now need to look 
round carefully for buyers, and especially for 
buyers able to pay cash. There, too, America can 
come in ; but if the States buy freely from us, they 
will also expect to sell something to us. 



SECTION V 

General and Final 

You instinctively say "damn," for the sake of the 
mental relief, when you bang your shin against a 
kerbstone. In somewhat the same way the 
ordinary man needs occasional relief from the try- 
ing and tedious processes of linguistic correctness. 
vSlang is the result. Much has been said about 
American slang: sometimes suggestions that it 
borders upon vulgarity. Let us briefly examine the 
question. 

American slang has the qualities of directness, 
brevity, and humour. Their first-class speakers do 
not in formal addresses use slang, except very 
occasionally and for special emphasis : but in 
ordinary conversation one hears plenty of it — 
singularly apt, as a rule, but rarely vulgar. Very 
occasionally one hears an expression which grates 
on the unaccustomed ear, but what nation's slang 
is entirely free of such? 

If you have work to do — "go to it" or "get 
busy"; if you succeed you have "put it over," or 



I04 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

you have "delivered the goods." If one is restless 
they will say of him that he will not "stay put" : if 
he is peevish they may ask "What's biting you ?" — 
and so on. There is no vulgarity in such expres- 
sions : but, as the American employs them, a cer- 
tain quaint fitness. I often heard their after- 
dinner speakers wax hotly indignant about the 
war-crimes of Germany and her Kaiser: they 
would add that just punishment must be meted out 
to the latter, for it would never do, in the interests 
of Germany herself, to allow the arch-criminal to 
"get way with it." 

In England one hears certain words tortured by 
repetition until they cease to have any meaning, 
e.g., absolutely, rotten, ripping, priceless, and the 
like. It is a singularly unenterprising kind of 
addendum to language. It adds no vivacity to talk 
— rather the reverse. There is far more "punch" 
in the American method. 

Baseball in the States has a terminology all its 
own, and the more capably humorous reporters 
receive high salaries for reports which read like 
Choctaw to the British stranger. "Rooters" and 
"fans" are the folk who supply the frenzied 
excitement of the onlookers. The discerning 
philologist w-ill see at once that "fan" is short for 
fanatic. The "bleacher" is the onlooker in the 
cheaper outside seats, with no roof over him. 



SPEAKERS AND PRONUNCIATION 105 

That too is clear enough ; also such terms as "two 
baggers" (two runs) : and "spitball," when the 
pitcher salivates a section of the ball to attain a 
certain spin. But why a left-hander is a "south 
paw" is not so clear. 

I well know the value of a column in such a 
paper as the Nezv York Times, as I occasionally 
sought it for Australian publicity. It was as 
difficult to place ordinary "stuff" in that sacred 
region as for the wealthy man to pass through the 
eye of the needle. But baseball is the chartered 
libertine of journalistic space. So I was not sur- 
prised, just before the season opened, to read 
lengthy daily reports about popular idols practising 
for the approaching contests. Great interest 
attached to a particular pitcher, who, two seasons 
before, had been the terror of batsmen, but in the 
last season had unaccountably "faded away." Half- 
columns described his practice, and told exactly 
how his biceps and triceps and other muscular 
accoutrements were working. The nation's excite- 
ment grew daily : then, in the first match, came the 
disastrous anti-climax. He was banged for five 
runs — and "Ichabod" was written over his base- 
ball record. A whole nation sighed its regrets. 

American pronunciation seems odd to the Eng- 
lish ear; but one soon ceases to take particular 
notice of it. "Boston" is almost always "Borston." 



To6 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

The "o" is often pronounced more like "ar" : as for 
instance "starp" or "staap," where we say "stop." 
"New" and "due" become "noo" and "doo" : while 
"schedule" is always "skedule." These are, after 
all, only trivialities : and for aught I know "skedule" 
may be technically more correct than the other 
method. Their high-class speakers usually pro- 
nounce very much as our best speakers do. Our 
pronunciation in turn often puzzles the American, 
especially in family names — and no wonder. 

The American's thirst for information is 
apparently insatiable: and his appetite for speeches 
cannot, in New York, be quenched short of i a.m. 
The Toastmaster (our "chairman" or "president") 
is responsible for the function, and is very grateful 
to any speaker who adds to its success. I found 
the audiences very generous in their appreciation 
of any fairly good speaker. Few tedious speakers 
are put up — at any rate twice ! The quality and 
humour of the speaking are on the average fine. 

At some of their important society banquets the 
ceremonial customs are very interesting, and the 
toastmasters' costumes quaint. Sometimes one or 
two of their recognized humorous speakers are put 
up last, no doubt in order to send the belated guests 
away in a happy frame of mind. Very cleverly 
they accomplish this charitable purpose. These 
humorists are permitted the widest range of sub- 



AMERICAN WAR EFFORT 107 

jects; the only expectation is that they shall be 
epigrammatic and funny. This they succeed in 
doing by characteristic methods, and no doubt 
much thought and care are put into the preparation. 

Our terrible anxieties and bereavements during 
the first three years of the war made us increasingly 
wonder when the United States would enter the 
bloodstained arena. Most of us were unaware of 
the full measure of their internal difficulties, as, for 
instance, their large German population : we did 
not know the strength of the German and Irish 
propaganda — nor the full tale of the official Ger- 
man lies and promises. We did not sufficiently 
appreciate the strength of the Washington 
tradition in keeping the nation clear of European 
entanglements. On this tradition they had built for 
one hundred and twenty-five years, until it had be- 
come warp and woof of the fabric of the national 
mind. Even when they did come in, it was thought 
in the Eastern States that the West might hesitate 
a little — or at any rate enter in a Laodicean spirit. 
Actually, the Middle West and West came in 
if anything more whole-heartedly than the East, 
both as regards enlistments and loan subscriptions. 
This was not because they more easily shed the old 
traditions, but because President Wilson's appeal to 
war was based upon broad moral grounds which they 
accepted fully, enthusiastically, and immediately. 



io8 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

The actual national fighting contribution was 
(compared with the British or French or Italian) 
no very great matter, as their own intellectuals 
freely admit. They entered towards the end of the 
third year of the war: and their numbers, 
with the promise of ample additions, gave edge to 
Marshal Foch's strategy. Such actual fighting as 
they shared at a critical time was done with success 
and fine courage, if with unavoidable inexperience. 
Their men largely lacked equipment of their own : 
the Allies assisted them with big guns, shells, aero- 
planes, and transport. There were mistakes in 
their home work (as with us), notwithstanding 
enormous expenditures : for instance, their output 
of new shipping during the war was disappointing. 
They had been unprepared (as we were) : and the 
administration of their war work not unnaturally 
developed delays and errors. After all, these are 
features unlikely in any case to have been wholly 
avoided under the peculiar circumstances : and to- 
day it would be both ungenerous and futile to dwell 
on them. 

The great thing — the thing which must have 
struck any reasonably observant visitor — was the 
almost unthinkably stupendous scale of the war 
effort they were preparing, in case of need. Let 
me briefly recite some of the points upon which 
we may preferably dwell : — 



AMERICAN WAR EFFORT 109 

1. The bold adoption of conscription soon after 
they came into the war: and the prompt and 
thorough internment of Germans deemed 
dangerous. 

2. Over two milHon men sent across to France in 
eighteen months, with another three milHons in 
training camps at home. Behind these the 
muster-rolls covered still another twenty 
millions, aged 18 to 45, from whom to select 
additional drafts if needed. 

3. Some 370 war vessels in European waters, with 
about 80,000 men : inter-working admirably with 
the British navy under unified control. At home 
another 320,000 men in training. 

4. Huge organizations for shipbuilding, munitions, 
aeroplanes, guns, foods, finance, etc. : and a new 
gas of a quality about which rumour only fit- 
fully whispered — so terrible were its alleged 
lethal powers. 

5. To prevent stoppages of work during the period 
of their participation in the war, the Govern- 
ment raised wages, and commandeered materials, 
in every direction. The aftermath of all this has 
yet to be faced. 

6. The food administration involved huge organi- 
zation, and included control of all imports and 
exports of food stuffs. The broad idea was to 
save at home so as to export more to the Allies. 



no AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

No laws were passed, but the people were asked 
voluntarily to restrict their consumption of 
white bread and sugar. They submitted to these 
self-denying ordinances with admirable loyalty 
and temper, as I personally observed both in 
clubs and hotels. 

7. The "American Protective League" embraced 
about 350,000 volunteers all over the States, 
with a small central paid staff. The service in- 
cluded leading men in all the professions and 
avocations — anyone, in fact, whose loyalty and 
discretion were beyond question. They watched 
for enemy propaganda or machinations, and did 
their secret work most capably. After the 
Armistice several good friends "owned up" that 
they had been members ; but during the war they 
did not speak of their work. 

8. Americans are a peace-loving people : and many 
of them regard war as both stupid and sinful. 
They are not imbued with the British idea 
that war provides a field of honourable en- 
deavour : or with the family tradition which 
directs so many sons to the Navy and Army. 

9. The United States had no territorial ambitions 
by way of inducement to come into the war. 

Germans in centres like Chicago and Milwaukee 
— where there are large numbers of them — were, 
before April, 191 7, clamorously anti-British. They 



AMERICAN WAR EFFORT iir 

were suppressed with drastic completeness ; after 
that date they did not openly "bat an eyelid." The 
educated American seemed to me much more 
righteously indignant with the Germans than were 
the British. The American was especially angry 
over the crimes and attempted crimes of Germans 
in the States after April, 1917. Possibly the 
British were really just as angry, but with typical 
reserve they did not show it. 

I heard a well-known American clergyman tell 
the "skunk" yarn at a big dinner, by way of illus- 
trating his appreciation of the German. The skunk 
is a beast upon whom nature has bestowed a 
peculiarly offensive odour. At a Canadian internment 
camp for Germans an American and a Canadian 
soldier saw a skunk go into a shed not far away. 
The American bet the Canadian a dollar he could 
not stay in the shed ten minutes. The wager was 
accepted, but lost ; the Canadian emerged after 
six minutes, very red in the face. Then the 
Canadian challenged the American to try, and the 
latter also failed, after a gallant eight minutes' 
effort. A German lounging by asked to have a try, 
and, after one minute, the skunk came out ! 

Another war yarn. At several banquets I saw 
young Whittlesea — Major, I think, was his rank, 
but he was far better know by the sulphurous title 
of "Go-to-Hell Whittlesea." He had held a cer- 



112 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

tain point on the battlefield in France with a com- 
paratively small body of men, and had been isolated 
for a day or two. The Germans sent across a 
message to the effect that the American defence 
had done all that brave men could be expected to 
do ; that their position was hopeless ; and they had 
better surrender. Whittlesea's official reply was 
terse, uncompromising, and final : he said, "Go to 
Hell !" Someone at home related the story, with 
great pride, to Whittlesea's aunt ; but she. thinking 
for the moment that the luridness of the reply was in 
question, rushed at once to the defence. "When he 
said that," she explained, "he was just giving them 
advice." 

We may well yield a fair measure of apprecia- 
tion to the American effort : for on their side, 
amongst their men of weight and responsibility, 
especially in the east, one heard nothing but 
generous appreciation of the great stubborn, pro- 
tracted British effort. I have already mentioned 
that we possibly need sound propagandist work in 
several of the western States, to tell some of their 
people the true story of what Britain has done in 
connection with finance, munitions, shipping, fight- 
ing by sea and land. In the eastern States that is 
no longer necessary — they know. 

Particularly they appreciate the grim, silent and 
wonderfully efficient work of the British navy. 



BRITISH WAR EFFORT 113 

The friendly feeling dates back to 1898 and to 
Manila Bay. There, Admiral Dewey was about to 
attack the Spanish squadron, and the German 
Admiral (Von Diederichs) was inclined to inter- 
fere. A small British squadron was also there, 
under Captain Chichester. The German sent a 
message across to Chichester, to ask the latter what 
he purposed doing if there was trouble between the 
United States and the German vessels. By way of 
answer Chichester manoeuvred his vessels between 
the other two squadrons, and then replied "That is 
a matter only known to Admiral Dewey and my- 
self." 

That grand old man of the United States navy. 
Admiral Sims, has done sound work by speaking 
most eulogistically of the British navy — especially 
of the way in which the two navies co-operated 
during the great war. He freely expressed the 
gratitude of his nation for the transporting and 
convoying of American soldiers to France — a work 
most capably done, and in the main, by the British 
navy. 

At the annual dinner of one of the many historic 
New York Societies I heard the Chairman pay a 
fine compliment to the British navy. He said, by 
way of contrast, that we all took off our hats to 
Cervera in 1898 for leading his doomed squadron 
out of Santiago, with flags flying and guns roaring. 



114 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

But what attitude, he asked, was appropriate for 
the surrender of the German navy? No guns roar- 
ing — sailing in ignominious security between two 
lines of battleships, mostly British, to the humilia- 
ting safety of Scapa Flow — "not battle scarred, 
but battle scared." That was the realization of 
"Der Tag," which the German navy had been toast- 
ing for twenty years ! 

The United States navy worked with ours in 
much closer association and unified control than 
could possibly have been effected with the two 
armies. On both sides there are soldier "growlers," 
who return to their own country to exaggerate 
petty differences and to spread needless ill-feeling. 
It is to be hoped their utterances will carry very 
little weight. No great bodies of men of different 
nationalities! ever mingled in compulsory associa- 
tion without quarrels here and there — quarrels 
arising out of careless words, misunderstandings, 
boyish excess of spirits, assertion of nationality, 
and the like. That is essentially nothing : the point 
is — never to exaggerate it into something. 

There is no want of appreciation of the 
"Tommy" amongst those whose opinions really 
count in the States. Quite the reverse. And if 
they have a specially warm corner for any 
particular soldier, it is for the "Anzac." This, so 
far as I am personally concerned, is no mere fleet- 



BRITISH WAR EFFORT 115 

ing general impression. My wife and I saw 
several letters from American lads at the front to 
their mothers, in which the former wrote most 
generously and eulogistically of the Australians. 
There must have been many thousands of such 
letters which we did not see. 

At a meeting dedicated to appreciation of the 
British war work a speaker drew thunderous ap- 
plause by a reference to the contribution by British 
women — especially in the manufacture of 
munitions. He mentioned how it was proposed to 
introduce a certain safety device for the women, 
but, because this would have involved a drop in 
production of about 25 per cent., the women of 
England refused to adopt it. 

When the 27th Division (U.S.A.) returned to 
New York, under Major-General O'Ryan, and 
paraded up Fifth Avenue, their reception by the 
populace was overwhelming in its enthusiasm and 
affection. First came a large floral wreath, to the 
memory of the gallant dead: then all the wounded 
who were well enough to ride in cars : and at the 
head of the marching column — in the place of 
honour — a small unit of some twenty-four Aus- 
tralian soldiers. The reception of that tiny Aus- 
tralian spearhead was extraordinarily warm and 
enthusiastic. He would have been a curiously un- 
feeling Australian who could have witnessed and 



ii6 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

heard that demonstration without a deep regard for 
the generous people who so finely tendered it. 

Many leading Americans and Britishers are to- 
day ardently looking to an early future when these 
two great nations will no longer misunderstand 
one another, even in the immaterial trifles of 
manner and deportment. There are, however, 
several agencies constantly at work to thwart that 
better understanding. I have already mentioned 
the Irish propaganda, and there are others. The 
German is to-day comparatively silent in the States ; 
but it would be dangerous to assume that he is 
inactive. There is apparently something in the 
average modern German's soul-substance which 
makes him an instinctive mischief-maker; and it is 
safer to take it for granted that in the States he 
will do all the subterranean work he can to em- 
bitter international relations. 

The American school-books have not yet been 
fully corrected. I was credibly informed that 
nearly a third of these still teach the history of 
1776 in the grotesquely twisted manner of the old 
days. Strong effort should be made to complete 
the work of revision. Enough mischief has already 
been done by the bitterly misleading teaching of 
history. The American manhood of to-day natu- 
rally finds it difficult entirely to discard the evil 
effects of that teaching. Finally, there are the 



FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 117 

Hearst papers — a string of them from New York to 
San Francisco — always ingeniously and strongly 
anti-British. We need capable, constant propa- 
ganda in reply, so that nowhere in the States shall 
the anti-British case go by default. The typical 
Englishman hesitates to undertake this work, which 
appears to him to savour of national advertising or 
boasting. But it is too serious to justify hesitation 
on such grounds; and, after all, boasting is not 
really involved. It is rather a matter of authori- 
tatively correcting mistatements on the one hand, 
and on the other of frankly and temperately 
supplying correct information about our nation and 
her share in the war. Americans are always ready 
to listen appreciatively and generously. 

To bring about that better understanding^ it is 
only needful to increase our mutual knowledge.* To 
that end there should be interchanges of teachers 
and students (something of that kind is in pro- 
gress), and visits both ways of Chambers of Com- 

*A society has just been founded, called the "English- 
speaking Union." It has branches on both sides of the 
Atlantic — and no doubt will have them, later on, through- 
out the Empire. The President of the Society in America 
is Hon. William Taft: with strong names on the vice- 
presidents' list, representing all sections of the community. 
The British President is the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, and 
the vice-presidents include Sir Robt. Borden (Canada), 
Viscount Bryce, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rt Hon. 
Winston Churchill, Earl Curzon, Field Marshal Sir 
Douglas Haig, and Earl Reading. 



ii8 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

merce representatives, journalists, workmen, of 
millitary, naval, and political leaders. Many causes 
of irritation are certain to arise, especially in the 
business world; but with fuller knowledge a finer 
sympathy will be established, and such rivalries, 
unavoidable under all the circumstances, will be 
freed of bitterness. "To understand all," as the 
French express it, "is to forgive all." 

The people of the United States derive from the 
same racial stock as ourselves : they speak the same 
language; their theories of personal liberty trace 
back to Magna Charta, the Habeas Corpus Act, 
the Bill of Rights, and other old British statutes: 
they appeal to the same body of common law : they 
enjoy the same literature: and their ideas of games, 
teamplay, and sportsmanship, are much the same as 
ours. For over one hundred years there has been 
peace between the two nations : and differences, of 
which there have been many, have been amicably 
settled by arbitration or discussion. It is surely a 
very significant circumstance that on the long 
frontier between the United States and Canada 
there are no forts, no guns, no regiments : the line 
is kept by mutual confidence, and that suffices. 
The nations are too alike, too much akin even to 
contemplate the possibility of battle along that 
frontier. To-day the American on the Fourth of 
July is thinking a little less of the old historic idea 



FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 119 

of "Independence," and rather more of the modern 
conception of "interdependence." 

As one considers the so-called disaster (to 
Britain) of 1776, it becomes possible to read that 
event in a newer and finer light. On the American 
side the struggle for independence fused the 
thirteen States into a nation as nothing else could 
have done, and gave that nation's genius an impetus 
for expansion on lines peculiarly its own. On the 
other hand, the events of 1776 taught British 
statesmanship a better method with the colonies: 
and the wonderful response of the Dominions and 
Dependencies in 1914 stands as an eternal testi- 
mony to that more understanding method. 

No one would be so ridiculous as to suggest any- 
thing in the nature of organic union between the 
two nations; nor is there needed any rigid alliance 
resembling the offensive and defensive European 
alliances of a day which, we hope, has passed away. 
It only requires fuller understanding and sympathy : 
the eradication of ignorant and ungenerous 
criticism on both sides: the better recognition of 
racial kinship. 

Both nations are geographically outside war- 
stricken Europe. Both are capable, in a detached 
and observant way, of economically assisting 
Europe in the hour of its terrible need. If these 
two great nations hold themselves apart, and permit 



120 AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS 

pettiness to separate them, it will amount to a 
crime in the face of high Heaven. On the con- 
trary, they have it in their hands, by frank and 
friendly inter-working, to assist Europe to rebuild 
its shattered prosperity. In their hands largely 
lies the safety of the world. 



W. C. Penfold & Co. Ltd., 88 Pitt Street, Sydney. 



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[Ready in September. 
Only a limited number of this fine book will be printed. 
Martens was an Englishman, a pupil of Copley Fielding, 
and was the artist of the Beagle Voyage, in the thirties. 
Charles Darwin was naturalist to the same expedition. 
Martens left H.H.S Beagle and settled in Sydney, where 
he died in 1878. During his forty years in Australia he 
made many hundreds of water-colour pictures and pencil 
drawings which, for artistic merit, and in many instances 
as the only existing views of the landscapes depicted, are 
to-day rated among the choicest possessions of public 
galleries and private collectors. His work is eagerly 
sought for nowadays, and we have known £500 to be paid 
for a picture which he sold off the easel for £31 10s. 

OFFICIAL HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA IN THE 
WAR OF 1914-1918. Edited by C. E. W. Bean. With 
many maps and other illustrations. 12 vols., demy 8vo., 
cloth gilt. [In preparation. 

We have been entrusted by the Government of the 
Commonwealth of Australia with the publication of the 
above. The work will comprise the following: — 
Bean (C. E. W.) The Australian Imperial Force in 
Gallipoli and France. 6 vols. 



SELECTED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

Gullett (H. S.) The A.I.F. in Sinai and Palestine. 1 vol. 
Cutlack (F. M.) The Australian Flsring Corps. 1 vol. 

Jose (Captain Arthur W.) The Royal Australian Navy. 

1 vol. 

Mackenzie (Lt.-Col. Seaforth) The A.I.F. in New Guinea. 

1 vol. 

Heney (T. W.) Story of the War Effort in Australia. 

1 vol. 

The Story of the War in Photographs, taken by Capt. 

G. H. Wilkins, M.C. and Bar; Capt. Frank Hurley; Lieut. 

Baldwin and others, annotated lay C. E. W. Bean and 

H. S. Gullett. 1 vol. 

O'CALLAGHAN (M. A.) Dairying in Australasia: Farm 
and Factory. Third edition, thoroughly revised. 10 x 6 
in., cloth, 20s. [In preparation. 

Over 5,000 copies were sold of the previous edition. Mr. 
O'Callaghan's book is acknowledged by the experts in 
Great Britain and other countries to be the best all-round 
book on the subject. This new edition will contain 
chapters on subjects not previously dealt with, such as 
Milk Powder, etc. 

PEDLEY (ETHEL C.) Dot and the Kangaroo. Fifth 
edition, from new type, with 19 full-page plates by Frank 
Mahony, the frontispiece and cover design in colour. 
10 X 7i in., picture boards (uniform with "Snugglepot and 
Cuddlepie"), 6s. [Ready in September. 

POTTS (H. W.) Pigs and their Management. By H. W. 

Potts, F.C.S., F.L.S., Principal of Hawkesbury Agri- 
cultural College and Experiment Farm, Richmond, N.S.W. 
Fourth edition, re-written and greatly enlarged, with new 
illustrations. 9j x 6 in., cloth. [In preparation. 

Three editions of Mr. Potts' book on Pigs were published 
by the N.S.W. Government, and its success has been re- 
markable. It is the only book based upon Australian 
experience in pig-raising, and has become the standard 
work, not only in the Commonwealth, but in New Zealand 
and South Africa. In the new (fourth) edition which 
Mr. Potts is preparing for publication by us, he will deal 
still more exhaustively with every branch of the subject, 
and the volume will be twice as large as previously. 



ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD., SYDNEY 

QUINN (RODERIC) A Volume of Poems, containing 
the best of his published and unpublished work, in over 
300 pages, with portrait, cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. 

[Ready in September. 
SMITH (HON. BRUCE) The Truisms of Statecraft: 
An Attempt to Define, in general terms, the Origin, 
Growth, True Purpose and Future Possibilities of Popular 
Government. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 5s. [Ready in March. 



ROSS SMITH SOUVENIRS 
SMITH (SIR ROSS) Short Account of the First Aero- 
plane Voyage from England to Australia. With portraits 
of Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith, and Sergeants Shiers 
and Bennett. 

Vol. 1. With 29 full-page photographs of Sydney and 
some N.S.W. Country Towns and Districts, taken by 
Captain Frank Hurley from the Vickers-Vimy Biplane. 
10 X 74 in., stiff boards, 2s. 6d. [Ready 6th March. 

Vol. 2. With a similar number of photographs of Mel- 
bourne and some Victorian Country Towns and Districts, 
price 2s. 6d. [Ready in March. 

Vol. 3. With a similar number of photographs of 
Adelaide and some S.A. Country Towns and Districts, 
price 2s. 6d. [Ready in March. 



SOCIETY OF ARTISTS PICTURES, 1919. Being a 
special number of "Art in Australia." With History of 
the Society by Julian Ashton. 20 plates in colour and 50 
in black and white. 11 x 8| in., 12s. 6d. [Ready in March. 

STEWART (JOHN ROY) The Australian Veterinary 
Guide: A Practical Reference Book for Stockowners. By 
John Roy Stewart, B.V.Sc. (Syd.\ The Diseases of 
Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, Dogs, etc., and their Treat- 
ment, with Chapters on Anatomy and Physiology for 
Students, and hundreds of illustrations. 10 x 6 in., 
(uniform with O'Callaghan's "Dairying"), cloth. 

[In preparation. 



SELECTED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

WHITE (CAPT. T. A.) Diggers Abroad: Jottings on the 
Western Front by an Australian Officer. With 40 illus- 
trations by David Barker. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 6s. 

[Ready in April, 

PUBLICATIONS 

ANDERSON (MAYBANKE) Mother Lore: a Book for 
Fathers. Mothers and Teachers who seek to do their duty 
by the Nation. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 

ATKINSON and DAKIN— Sex Hygiene and Sex Edu- 
cation. A Book for Parents and Teachers. By Dr. 
Everitt Atkinson, Commissioner of Public Health, 
Western Australia, and Professor W. J. Dakin, University 
of Perth, W.A. With illustrations. Second edition, 
crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 

AUSTRALIA IN PALESTINE. A Pictorial Record of 
the Work of the Australian Imperial Force in Palestine 
and Egypt, with contributions in prose and verse by 
writers who served there. With 4 folding maps, 3 battle- 
plans, and 263 other illustrations, many of them coloured. 
Twentieth thousand. 11 x Si in., handsomely bound, 
10s. 6d. 

BAYLDON (FRANCIS) The Handling of Steamships 
during Hurricanes on the East Coast of Queensland. 
By F. Bayldon, Lieut., R.N.R., Master Mariner. With 
coloured diagrams. Royal 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 

BOAKE (BARCROFT) Where the Dead Men Lie, and 
Other Poems. With portrait and 38 illustrations by 
Frank Mahony and G. W. Lambert. Second edition, 
crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 

BOXALL (G. E.) History of the Australian Bushrangers. 

Fourth edition, revised. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 

BRENNAN (C. J.) A Chant of Doom, and Other Verses. 

With portrait by Lionel Lindsay. 7* x 6 in. handsomely 

bound, 3s. 6d. 

CALENDAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. 

Demy 8vo., paper cover. Is. [Published annually, in June. 



ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD., SYDNEY 

CAMBAGE (R. H.) Exploration beyond the Upper 
Nepean in 1798. By R. H. Cambage, F.L.S. With map 
and illustrations. Svo., sewn, 2s. [Just Out. 

CAMPBELL (JOSEPH) Simple Tests for Minerals; or, 

Every Man his own Analyst. Fifth edition, pocket size, 
cloth, round corners. 3s. 6d. 

COCKETT (C. BERNARD) Sex and Marriage. By Rev. 
C. Bernard Cockett, M.A., Convener, of Standing Com- 
mittee on Public Morals, Congregational Union of Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand, and of the Social Purity and Sex 
Education Department of the Victorian Council of 
Churches. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. [Just Out. 

CLEARY (P. S.) The One Big Union: Will it Emancipate 
the Worker? By P. S. Cleary, President of the Catholic 
Federation. Demy 8vo., sewn, Is. 

CLEARY (P. S.) Social Solidarity. The Principles, 
Objective, and Platform of the Democratic Party. By 
P. S. Cleary, President of the Catholic Federation. 
Demy 8vo., sewn, Is. [Just Out. 

THE COMMONSENSE COOKERY BOOK. Compiled 
by the Cookery Teachers' Association of N.S.W. New 
edition, revised and enlarged. Crown Bvo., cloth boards. 
Is. 6d. 

COMMONSENSE HINTS ON PLAIN COOKERY. 
A Companion to the Commonsense Cookery Book, ex- 
plaining all Methods of Preparing Food. Compiled by 
the Cookery Teachers' Association of N.S.W. Second 
edition, revised and enlarged. Crown Bvo., cloth limp. 
Is. 6d. 

COOKERY BOOK OF GOOD AND TRIED 
RECEIPTS. Compiled for the Presbyterian Women's 
Missionary Association. Fifteenth edition, enlarged, 
completing 230,000 copies, 224 pages, crown 8vo., cloth. 
Is. 6d. 

CRAMP (K. R.) The State and Federal Constitutions 
of Australia: With a tabulated comparison of the Federal 
Constitutions of the World. With portraits and illus- 
trations. Second edition, revised, crown Bvo., cloth gilt, 
3s. 6d. 



SELECTED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

CROSS (ZORA) Songs of Love and Life: Poems. 

Fourth edition, with portrait, and coloured jacket by 

Norman Lindsay. 7i x 6 in., cloth gilt, 5s. 

CROSS (ZORA) The Lilt of Life: Poems. 7j x 6 in., 

cloth gilt, 5s. 

CRUICKSHANK (W. D.) Principles and Practice of 

Boiler Construction. A manual for Practical Men. 

Second edition, revised and enlarged, with 70 illustrations. 

Demy 8vo., cloth gilt, 15s. 

DALEY (VICTOR J.) At Dawn and Dusk: Poems. 

With portrait. Third edition, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 

4s. 6d. 

DALEY (VICTOR J.) Wine and Roses: Poems. Second 

edition, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. fid. 

DAVIES (ARCHDEACON DAVID J.) The Church and 

the Plain Man. A contribution to Pastoral Theology, by 

the Ven. Archdeacon Davies, M.A., Principal of Moore 

Theological College, Sydney, Examining Chaplain to the 

Archbishop of Sydney, sometime Director of Studies in 

History, Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo., 

cloth gilt, 6s. 

Over lOOOOO copies sold. 
DENNIS (C. J.) The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke. 
With frontispiece, title-page and jacket in colour, and 
other illustrations by Hal Gye. 7i x 6 in., cloth, 5s. 
DENNIS (C. J.) The Moods of Ginger Mick. Fourteen 
Poems, with frontispiece, title-page and jacket in colour, 
and other illustrations by Hal Gye. Fifty-sixth thousand. 
7i X 6 in., cloth, 5s. 

DENNIS (C. J.) Doreen: A Story in Verse, being a 
Sequel to "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke." With 
coloured and other illustrations by Hal Gye. Sixtieth 
thousand. In envelope ready for posting, Is. 
DENNIS (C. J.) The Glugs of Gosh. With frontispiece, 
title-page and jacket in colour, and other illustrations by 
Hal Gye. Twenty-fourth thousand. 7i x 6 in., cloth, 5s. 
DENNIS (C. J.) Backblock Ballads and Later Verses. 
New edition, with frontispiece, title-page and jacket in 
colour, by Hal Gye. Ninth thousand. 7j x 6 in., cloth, 5s. 



ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD., SYDNEY 

DENNIS (C. J.) Digger Smith. The Story of a Returned 
Soldier, in Verse. With frontispiece, title-page and jacket 
in colour, and other illustrations by Hal Gye. Nineteenth 
thousand. 7i x 6 in., cloTh, 5s. 

DENNIS (C. J.) Jim of the Hills. A Story in Rhyme. 
With frontispiece, title-page and jacket in colour by Hal 
Gye. Eighth thousand. 7i x 6 in., cloth, 5s. [Just Out. 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE IN AUSTRALIA. 
Edited by Sydney Ure Smith and Bertram Stevens, in 
collaboration with W. Hardy Wilson. With contributions 
by Professor Leslie Wilkinson, W. Hardy Wilson, H. 
Desbrowe-Annear, W. H. Bagot and R. S. Dods. 45 full- 
page illustrations, II4 x 9 in., handsomely bound, 21s. 
DONNELL (ANNE) Letters of an Australian Army 
Sister, from Lemnos, Egypt, and France, and from Great 
Britain. With portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 6s. 

[Just Out. 
EVANS (GEORGE ESSEX) The Secret Key, and Other 
Poems. With portrait. Second thousand, crown 8vo., 
cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 

FARRELL (JOHN) How He Died, and Other Poems. 
With portrait. Third edition, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 
FLINDERS— Life of Captain Matthew Flinders, R.N. 
By Professor Ernest Scott, author of "Terre Napoleon," 
and "Life of Laperouse." With 40 folding maps, full- 
page plates and facsimiles. Demy Svo., cloth gilt, 21s. 
GIBBS (MAY) Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, and 
their Adventures Wonderful. With 23 coloured and other 
plates and many pen drawings in the text. Sixteenth 
thousand. 10 x 7i in., picture boards, 6s. 
GIBBS (MAY) Gum-Nut Babies. With 2 coloured and 
12 other pictures. 8| x 5l in., in envelope ready for 
posting, Is. 6d. 

GIBBS (MAY) Wattle Babies. With 2 coloured and 
12 other pictures. 8| x 5| in., in envelope ready for 
posting, Is. 6d. 

GIBBS (MAY) Boronia Babies. With 2 coloured and 
12 other pictures. 8| x 5| in., in envelope ready for 
posting. Is. 6d. 



SELECTED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

GELLERT (LEON) Songs of a Campaign. New edition, 
with 25 additional poems and 16 pictures by Norman 
Lindsay. 7* x 6 in., cloth, 5s. 

GILMORE (MARY) The Passionate Heart: Poems. 
By Mary Gilmore. author of "Marri'd." With portrait. 
7i X 6 in., cloth, 5s. 

HARDOUIN (JEAN, S.J.) Prolegomena to a Censure 
of Old Writers. Translated by Edwin Johnson, author 
of "The Rise of Christendom," etc. Crown 8vo., cloth 
gilt, 6s. 

HARRIS and HENDERSON— A Source Book of Aus- 
tralian History. Edited by H. L. Harris, M.A.. and R. 
G. Henderson, M.A. Containing extracts from Original 
Sources, from the Earliest Voyages to the Foundation 
of the various States. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
HILDER (J. J.) The Art of J. J. Hilder. Edited by 
Sydney Ure Smith, with a Life by Bertram Stevens, and 
contributions by Julian R. Ashton and Harry Julius. 
With reproductions of 56 of his pictures (36 in colour). 
lOi X 85 in., handsomely bound and boxed, 42s. 
HOULDING (J. R.) Christopher Cockle's Australian 
Experiences. By J. R. Houlding ("Old Boomerang"). 
Second edition, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. 
JOSE (A. W.) History of Australasia: From the Earliest 
Times to the Present Day, with Chapters on Australian 
Literature, Industries, and Land Settlement. By Arthur 
W. Jose, author of "The Growth of the Empire." New 
(sixth) edition, thoroughly revised. Crown 8vo., cloth 
gilt, 5s. (School edition, 3s. 6d.) 

KENDALL (HENRY) Poetical Works. With Biography 
by Bertram Stevens. Enlarged edition, with portrait, and 
facsimile of letter to the Editor of Comhill. Crown Svo., 
cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. [Just Out. 

LAWSON (HENRY) When the World Was Wide, and 
Other Verses, With portrait. Ninth impression, crown 
Svo., cloth gilt, 4s 6d. 

LAWSON (HENRY) While the Billy BoUs: Stories. 
With 8 full-page illustrations by Frank Mahony. Eighth 
impression, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 



ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD., SYDNEY 

LAWSON (HENRY) Verses, Popular and Humorous. 

With frontispiece by Frank Mahony. Fifth impression, 
crown Svo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 

LAWSON (HENRY) On the Track and Over the Slip- 
rails: Stories. Fifth impression, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 
4s. 6d. 

LAWSON (HENRY) Children of the Bush: Stories. 
Fifth impression, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 
LAWSON (HENRY) Joe Wilson and His Mates: 
Stories. Fifth impression, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 
LAWSON (HENRY) When I Was King, and Other 
Verses. With 2 illustrations by Norman Lindsay. Third 
impression, crown Svo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 
LAWSON (HENRY) Selected Poems of Henry Lawson. 
With Preface by David McKee Wright, portrait in colour 
by John Longstaff. and 9 full-page illustrations by Percy 
Leason. Edition limited to 2,000 copies, 9i x 7i in., 
handsomely bound, 12s. 6d. 

LAWSON (WILL) The Three Kings, and Other Verses. 
With portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 
MACK (AMY ELEANOR) A Bush Calendar. With 42 
illustrations. Third edition, small 4to., decorated cloth, 
3s. 6d. 

MACK (AMY ELEANOR) Bushland Stories. Stories 
for Children. With coloured illustrations by Lionel 
Lindsay. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, coloured pictures on 
side and back, 4s. 6d. 

Illustrated by May Gibbs. 
MACK (AMY ELEANOR) Scribbling Sue and Other 
Stories. A volume of stories for children. With 
coloured and other illustrations by May Gibbs. Crown 
8vo., cloth gilt, coloured pictures on side and back, 4s. 6d. 
MACKAY (KENNETH) Songs of a Sunlit Land. By 
Colonel the Hon. Kenneth Mackay, C.B., With portrait. 
Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. 

MACKNESS (CONSTANCE) Gem of the Flat. A 
Story of Young Australians. With coloured and other 
illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, coloured pictures 
on side and back. 4s. 6d. 



SELECTED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

MURDOCH (PROF. J.) Australia Must Prepare. An 

Inaugural Lecture delivered by James Murdoch, M.A., 
Professor of Oriental Studies in the University of Sydney, 
author of "A History of Japan," Is. [Just Out. 

O'CONNOR (E. M.) List of Surgical Instruments for 
Set Operations. Compiled for the use of Nurses and 
Medical Students by E. M. O'Connor, Matron of the 
Royal South Sydney Hospital. 23. [Just Out. 

OGILVIE (WILL. H.) Fair Girls and Gray Horses: 
Poems. With portrait. Seventeenth thousand. Crown 
8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 

OGILVIE (WILL. H.) Hearts of Gold: Poems. Fifth 
thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 
OGILVIE (WILL. H.) The Australian, and Other Verses. 
With frontispiece, title-page and jacket in colour by Hal 
Gye. Seventh thousand, 7i x 6 in., cloth gilt, 5s. 
ONSLOW (S. MACARTHUR) Some Early Records of 
the Macarthurs of Camden, 1789-1834. Edited by S. 
Macarthur Onslow. With portraits, facsimiles, and other 
illustrations, some in colour. Demy 8vo., cloth gilt, 15s. 
PATERSON (A. B.) The Man from Snowy River, and 
Other Verses. Sixty-fifth thousand. With photogravure 
portrait and vignette title. 5| x 4j in., cloth, 4s. 

PATERSON (A. B.) Rio Grande, and Other Verses. 
Seventeenth thousand. 5| x 4i in., cloth, 4s. 

PATERSON (A. B.)— The Old Bush Songs. Composed 
and sung in the Bushranging, Digging, and Overlanding 
Days. Collected and edited by the author of "The Man 
from Snowy River." Fifteenth thousand. Crown Svo., 
picture cover, 3s. 

PATERSON (A. B.) An Outback Marriage. An Aus- 
tralian Novel. Third edition, crown Svo., picture cover, 2s. 
PATERSON (A. B.) Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other 
Verses. With coloured frontispiece, title-page and jacket 
by Lionel Lindsay. Sixth thousand. 5| x 4i in., cloth, 4s. 
PATERSON (A. B.) Three Elephant Power, and Other 
Stories. Fourth thousand, 7i x 6 in., cloth gilt, with 
jacket in colour, 4s. 



ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD., SYDNEY 

PHARMACOPCEIA OF THE ROYAL PRINCE 
ALFRED HOSPITAL, SYDNEY. 16mo., sewn, 2s. 6d. 

1918 
QUICK and GARRAN— The Annotated Constitution of 
the Australian Commonwealth. By Sir John Quick, 
LL.D., and Sir Robert Garran. Royal 8vo., cloth gilt, 21s. 

ROVETTA (GEROLAMO) Young Italy; or Roman- 
ticism. A Translation of "Romanticismo" by A. B. 
Piddington, K.C. Crown Svo., cloth limp, 2s. 6d. 

ROBERTS (M. E.) The Cutter's Guide. A Manual of 
Dresscutting and Ladies' Tailoring. By M. E. Roberts, 
Lecturer at The Technical College, Sydney. Fifth 
edition, revised and enlarged, with 139 diagrams. Crown 
4to., cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. 

ROBERTS (M. E.) Garment Cutting for Girls. A 

course of Scientific Garment Cutting for Schools. New 
edition, with 50 diagrams. Crown 4to., boards, 3s. 6d. 

ROBERTS (M. E.) Dress-Cutting Measure Book. For 
Students and Pupils using "The Cutter's Guide," and 
"Garment Cutting for Girls." 6d. 

SHENSTONE (F. S.) Golf Rules and Decisions. A 

Summary of the Rules of Golf, with Decisions, Table of 
Penalties and General Index. 5i x 4 in., cloth limp, 2s. 6d. 

[Just Out. 
SMITH (STEPHEN H.) Brief History of Education in 
Australia, 1788-1848. (Prescribed for Teachers' Exams, 
by N.S.W. Department of Education). Demy 8vo., sewn, 
2s. 

SMITH (SYDNEY URE) The Charm of Sydney. 22 
coloured and other illustrations by Sydney Ure Smith, 
with appropriate quotations selected by Bertram Stevens. 
7i X 5i in.. Is. 6d. 

STEVENS (BERTRAM) The Golden Treasury of 
Australian Verse. Compiled by Bertram Stevens. 
Sixteenth thousand. Crown Svo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 

STEVENS (BERTRAM) A Book of Australian Verse 
for Boys and Girls. Compiled by Bertram Stevens. With 
16 full-page portraits. Crown Svo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 



SELECTED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

STEPHEN (DANIEL) The Justice's Manual and Police 

Guide. A Synopsis of Penal Laws in force in N.S.W., 
and other Legal Information, arranged for quick 
reference. Third edition, revised and enlarged. Demy 
8vo., cloth, 10s. 6d. 

STEPHENS (BRUNTON) Poetical Works. With 
portrait. Fourth edition, crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. 
STREETON (ARTHUR) The Art of Arthur Streeton. 
Edited by Sydney Ure Smith, Bertram Stevens and C. 
Lloyd Jones. With an Introduction by Julian Ashton, 
and Articles on his Australian work by Lionel Lindsay, 
and on his English Paintings by P. G. Konody. With 
30 coloured plates and numerous black and white illus- 
trations. lOi X 8| in., handsomely bound, 42s. 
SULMAN (FLORENCE) A Popular Guide to the Wild 
Flowers of New South Wales. With 123 full-page illus- 
trations by Eirene Mort. 2 vols., crown Svo., cloth, 10s. 6d. 
SULMAN (A. E.) Familiar Australian Wild Flowers. 
Photographed from Nature by Mrs. A^ E. Sulman. 
First Series, with 64 full-page illustrations, 8| x 5| in., 
stiff paper cover, Is. 

Second Series, with 64 full-page illustrations, and frontis- 
piece in colour, 8| x 5| in., stift paper cover. Is. 
SUSSMILCH (C. A.) The Geology of New South Wales. 
Third edition, revised; the Chapter on the Cretaceous 
Period being entirely re-written, with new plates. 
Coloured map 17 x 13j in., and 100 other maps and 
illustrations. 7i x 5 in., cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. [Just Out. 

URQUHART (JESSIE) Wayside. A Story of Australian 
country Life. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. [Just Out. 

WATERHOUSE and LYELL— The Butterflies of 
Australia. A Monograph of the Australian Rhopalocera, 
in which every Australian butterfly known to science is 
described, and every species is figured. By G. A. Water- 
house, B.Sc, F.E.S., and G. Lyell, F.E.S. With 4 coloured 
and 39 other full-page plates, and numerous figures in 
the text. Demy 4to., cloth gilt, 42s. 1914 

WRIGHT (DAVID McKEE) An Irish Heart: Poems. 
With portrait by Mick Paul. 7^ x 6 in., cloth gilt. 5s. 



